
Class £444_ 

COFXRICHT DEPOSm 



1M^ r 



N^v, # y 



.^x ^\ 



Standard History 

of 

Memphis, Tennessee 

From a Study of the Original Sources 



Edited by 
JUDGE J. P. YOUNG 



Knoxville, Tennessee 

Published by H. W. Crew & Co. 

1912 









Copyrighted 1912 

by 

H. W. CREW & CO. 



Knoxville Printing & Box Co. 

Printers and Binders 

Knoxville, Tenn. 



^ 



/r: 



d o 



€ J,A330569 




-% Av EC-t^fffra'^ SBr^ T/V 



(^ 



INTRODUCTION 



Patriotism or devotion to one's country is a sentiment. It 
is not due to self interest nor other sordid motive, but is born 
of the story of her origin and of the achievements of the brave 
and enterprising ancestral stock, which, out of small beginnings, 
established and organized and wrought a nation. Every great 
city is in semblance a small nation, both in government and the 
loyal co-operation of its people for the common good. And the 
same patriotic devotion, born of the same sentiment does, or 
should prevail in every city as in every nation. 

As our civilization grows older our larger cities are taking 
more interest in the story of their own origin and development, 
and concerning some of them many historical volumes have been 
written, dealing with almost every incident of fact and legend 
that could be traced. And in many notable instances of cities 
the greater the knowledge of her history, the greater the pride 
and love and devotion of her people. 

Our own City of Memphis, though rated young among her 
Eastern sisters in America, is yet one of the most ancient, con- 
sidering the discovery of her site, and the building of the first 
habitations of the white man here, on the whole American conti- 
nent. When it is recalled that the adventurous Hernando De 
Soto built a cantonment for his troops here and established a 
little ship-yard, in which he constructed four piragues or barges, 
large enough to transport across the Mississippi River in time of 
high water, five hundred Spanish soldiers, as many more Indian 
vassels and one hundred and fifty horses, with baggage and other 
military equipment, in a few hours, and that all this occurred 
seventy-nine years before the landing of the Mayflower at Ply- 
mouth Rock and twenty-four years before the building of the 
first hut and stockade at St. Augustine, Fla., it will be realized 
that our story dates far back in ancient American history. 



VI History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Following up this fact much space has been given to the 
wonderful march of De Soto from Tampa Bay, Fla., to the 
Chickasaw Bluffs, literally hewing his way as he came with 
sword and halberd through swarming nations of brave Indians; 
and to showing that he marched directly from the Chickasaw 
towns in northeast Mississippi to the Chickasaw Bluffs; and to 
presenting in fullest detail from the Spanish Chroniclers what 
De Soto and his people did while on the Bluffs where Memphis 
now stands. And it was deemed proper also to tell with equal 
detail of the voyages of Marquette and Joliet and La Salle, 
past the lonely Chickasaw Bluffs, and of the coming of Le Moyne 
Bienville with a large army and the construction of a great 
fortress here, heavily mounted with artillery, in the endeavor 
to overcome the heroic Chickasaws who resented the French 
invasions in the effort to conquer their country and to found a 
great French Empire in Western America, And the story also 
is told of the effort of Governor Don Manuel Gayoso to establish 
in like manner a Spanish Empire west of the Mississippi River 
before the Americans could take hold. 

Indeed few American cities possess so romantic a story and 
the archives, not only of the United States, but of France and 
Spain also are yet rich in historical material awaiting the his- 
torian with time and opportunity for investigation. 

When the American pioneer came to the Chickasaw Bluffs 
and began to plan a city and then to cut away the forests and 
build, the narrative became more complex. The records at a 
frontier post, where the printing press had not yet appeared, 
were few and tradition is unreliable. To weigh and compare 
the fantastic legends and stories from memory that have come 
down to us, with the official records and authentic documents 
that survive, required patient care and discrimination and much 
that has been heretofore published as history has been rejected 
when found to be doubtful at least, or actually untrue. 

With the founding of newspapers the story became more 
lucid. But to collect and edit the great mass of undigested 
material and weave it into a connected story, has been a her- 
culean task that should not have been crowded into a year of 
time. There are necessarily imperfections and omissions in such 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. VII 

a work which a generous public, we trust, will overlook. It has 
been the purpose of the editor to collect, in condensed form, as 
much of all this story as could be compressed into one volume, 
leaving to the future historian the enlargement of the concise 
outline into the several volumes that would be necessary to con- 
vey the narrative in fullest detail. Our present beautiful city, 
with its wonderful river and parks and driveways and libraries 
and public buildings is worthy of far greater efforts than we 
have been able to bestow upon it in the work. 

If the people of Memphis shall be inspired by any part of 
the story, written in this book, to greater and more patriotic 
endeavors, not only to enlarge and adorn their already beautiful 
city, but to elevate her whole population to the highest plane 
of intellectual and moral progress and civic righteouness, the 
editor will feel richly paid for his humble but laborious work. 

The editor desires to express the obligation he is under for 
the cheerfully rendered assistance of all the citizens of Memphis, 
and the city authorities to whom he applied, for use of documents 
and records. And especially does he desire to express his obli- 
gation to Miss A. R. James, Assistant "Writer and Compiler, to 
whose intelligence, aptitude and energy the public is indebted 
for much of the story of municipal progress since the founding 
of the city, as well as of the sanitary and educational develop- 
ment of Memphis and the growth of classical, musical and his- 
trionic art among her people. 

J. P. Young. 

Memphis, Tenn., August 29, 1912. 



DEDICATION 

To the pioneers who founded and the brave sons who 
builded and loyally stood by Memphis in her hours of adversity 
and pestilence as in her days of victory and triumph, this volume 
of her history is affectionately dedicated. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

The Chickasaw Bluffs and the Aborigines. The Great, Silent 
Continent. Habits and Customs of the Indians. Choctaw 
Legend of the Bluffs. The Story of DeSoto. With Pizarro 
in Peru. He Plans the Conquest of Florida. DeSoto 's 
Dream of Gold. His Army and Knightly Commanders. 
The March Through Florida. Cruelties of the Spaniards. 
Toils and Sufferings of the Troops. On the Savannah 
Eiver. DeSoto Turns Westward. The Battle of Mauvila. 
DeSoto Enters MississiDDi. He Winters at Chicaca. Terri- 
ble Battle with the Chickasaw Indians. Sad Plight of 
the Spaniards. The Battle of Alibamo. The March to the 
Chickasaw Bluffs. DeSoto Discovers the Mississippi River. 
Chisca's Fortress on Jackson Mound. Story of the Dis- 
covery by the Spanish Chroniclers. DeSoto 's Sojourn 
Here. He Builds Huts and Then Boats. He crosses the 
River and Disappears in the West 9 



CHAPTER II 



The Chickasaw Bluffs Under Spain. The Coming of the 
Frenchmen. Voyage of Marquette and Joliet. The 
Journey of LaSalle. The Site of Fort Prudhomme. The 
Town of Mitchigamea. The Mouth of the Mississippi 
River. The Country Claimed for France. Bienville at 
the Bluffs. The Voyage up the River. The Building of 
Fort Assumption. War with the Chickasaws. Failure of 
Bienville. Diary of his Sojourn on the Chickasaw Bluffs. 
Terrible Indian Customs. Again Under the Dominion of 
Spain. Cession of the Country to Great Britain. The 
Province of Carolina. Grant of Charles II to the Lords 
Proprietors. Once More Under the Dominion of Spain. 
Don Manuel Gayoso De Lemos. Fort San Fernando de 
Barancas. Trouble with the Spaniards. Arrival of Captain 
Isaac Guion. The Americans Take Possession. The 
Chickasaw Bluffs Become Part of Tennessee. Our Chick- 
asaw Allies. American Forts Here 31 



2 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

CHAPTER III 

Land Grants by the State of Tennessee. John Rice and John 
Ramsey Grants. Purchase of West Tennessee from the 
Chickasaws. Judge John Overton Purchases Rice Grant. 
Takes in with him Andrew Jackson, Sketch of John Rice. 
The Birth of Memphis. Map of New Town. Appearance 
of the Surroundings. Narrative of Colonel James Brown. 
The Name of Memphis. Establishment of Shelby County. 
The First Court of Laws. The First County Tax Levy. 
The First Marriage 52 



CHAPTER IV 



Incorporation of Memphis. Resentment of the Inhabitants. 
Sketch of First Charter. First Board of Mayor and Alder- 
men. Limits of the Corporation Fixed. Outline of First 
Tax-Levy. Second Board of Aldermen. Memphis Made a 
City. Isaac Rawlings Mayor. City Divided into Wards. 
Fire Department Established. Citizens Oust the Gamblers. 
Young Memphis a Free Soil Town. Removal of the Indians 
to the West. Rivalry Between Memphis and Randolph. 
Mississippi Claims Site of Memphis. Tax Assessment of 
1840. War With the Flatboatmen. Memphis Gets the 
Great Navy Yard. The City Limits Extended. "South 
Memphis" and "Pinch." Incorporation of South Mem- 
phis. The First Telegraph Line. Troubles Over Slavery. 
The Wolf River Canal Project. The First Bond Issue. 
The Charters of 1848 and 1849 70 



CHAPTER V 



The Census of 1850. The Building of Plank Roads. Rapid 
Growth of the City. Extension of the Telegraph System. 
The First Railroad to the Atlantic. Great Railroad Jubilee 
in Memphis. The Financial Panic of 1857. Crime in 
Memphis. Uprising of the People and Mob Violence. 
Rescue of Able by N. B. Forrest. The Problem of Street 
Paving. The Bust of Andrew Jackson. More Troubles 
Over Slavery. The John Brown Raid and Its Conse- 
quences. The First Paid Fire Department 92 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 3 

CHAPTER VI 

Mutterings of the Coming Civil War. Secession Activities in 
Memphis. Great Torch Light Processions of the Unionists 
and Secessionists. Secession Defeated at the Polls. Reso- 
lutions of the Secessionists. The Leaders of the Disunion 
Party. The Call of Mr. Lincoln for Troops. Secession of 
Memphis from State. Tennessee Finally Secedes. The 
Vote in Memphis. Preparations for War. The Southern 
Mothers Ill 



CHAPTER VII 



Memphis Captured by the Federal Fleet. Exciting Scenes in 
the City. jMemphis Under IMilitary Law. Sherman in Com- 
mand. His Cruelty and Tyranny. Seizure of the Municipal 
Government by Military Commander. Close of the Civil 
War. Reconstruction Pleasures. Trouble with the Negroes. 
Great Riot in the City. The Freedman's Bureau. Brown- 
low's Militia Police. The Ku Klux Klan. Peace at Last. 
The City Begins to Grow Again. Trouble About Finances. 
Small Pox, Cholera and Yellow Fever Appear 126 



CHAPTER VIII 

John Loague, Mayor. Financial Difficulties. Census of 1875. 
New Charter. The Flippin Administration. Schemes to 
Retire City Debt. Sale of Navy Yard. Surrender of 
Cl^arter Considered. Great Epidemic of Yellow Fever 
Begins. Panic and Stampede of Citizens. Terrible Scenes 
of Suffering and Death. Howard Association and Relief 
Committees. Heroism of the Workers. The Tragedy of 
Death and Burial. The Daily Press Faithful. Generosity 
of Non-Residents. Loyal Negro Militia. Death Roll of 
the Howards. End of the Epidemic. Thanksgiving for 
Relief 161 



4 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

CHAPTER IX 

Debt and Disaster Follow the Fever. Surrender of the City 
Charter. The Taxing District Act. Struggle with Cred- 
itors. How Memphis had been Robbed. The Taxing Dis- 
trict Officials. How Memphis was Redeemed. Another 
Epidemic Breaks Out. Efficient Sanitary Measures Dis- 
cussed. The Meeting of Refugees in St. Louis. Colonel 
Waring Plans Sewer System. Work on the Sewers Begun. 
Character of the System. The People Take Heart. Pro- 
gress of Reconstructing the City Government. D. P. 
Hadden, President. The Old Debt Refunded. New Water 
System Established. Artesian Wells Sunk 185 



CHAPTER X 



Memphis Rising From Her Ashes. Census of 1880. Details of 
the Sewer System. The Bethell Administration. Increase 
of Property Values. The Cotton Trade. Big Fires in 
Memphis. The Mississippi River Bridge. Ceremonies of 
the Opening. Electric Car Service Inaugurated. Protest 
Against Taxing District Form of Government. Taxing 
District Proves a Success. Form of Taxation Unjust to 
Memphis. Gamblers Again. Law and Order League. Sam 
Jones in Memphis. Other Lecturers and Moral Workers. 
The Legislature Restores Titles of City, Mayor and Vice- 
Mayor. Clapp Elected Mayor. Artesian Water Company, 
Telephones and Electric Lighting. Back Tax Collector 
Appointed. Memphis to Levy Her Own Taxes. New City 
Hospital. Interstate Drill and Encampment. Flood of 
Mississippi River. Yellow Fever Scare. Bank Clear- 
ings 212 





CHAPTER XI 

J. J. Williams Elected Mayor. Death of Senator Harris. T. B. 
Turley Appointed Senator. Gambling Houses Closed. 
Further Extension of the City Limits. Collection of Taxes 
Authorized. Sewer Extension. Visit of President IMcKin- 
ley. Great Confederate Reunion. Williams is Reelected 
Mayor. Municipal Ownership of Water Works. Purchase 
of the Old Plant. Attempt to Amend Charter. Memphis 
Streets Renamed. Quarantine 247 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 5 

CHAPTER XII 

J. H. Malone Elected Mayor. Attack Upon Charter. Commis- 
sion Government Established and Declared Unconstitution- 
al. Reduction of Tax Rate. Flippin Compromise Bonds 
Refunded. Police Department Work. Improvement of 
"Water System, The City's Real Estate. Front Foot 
Assessment Law. Pensioning Policemen. City Limits Again 
Extended. Greater Memphis. Resume of Progress, 
1909 263 



CHAPTER XIII 

Commission Form of Government Established. Provisions of 
the Act. Election of E. H. Crump, as Mayor. Williams 
Vigorously Contests the Election of Crump. Contest With- 
drawn. Reduction of Tax Rate. Extension of Sewer 
System to Annexed Territory. Mounted Police Station. 
Vast Construction of New Streets. The City Greatly 
Beautified. Prohibition in Memphis. Curious Result of 
the Law. Juvenile Court Established. Splendid Work 
Among Children. Mounted Police Force. Modern Fire 
Equipment. Stupendous Municipal Improvements. 

Increase of Bond Issues. Purchase of Tri-State Fair 
Grounds. Crump Reelected. Tremendous Flood of Mis- 
sissippi River. Part of City Overflowed. Water System 
Contaminated 277 



CHAPTER XIV 



Architecture and. Public Buildings 307 



CHAPTER XV 

Parks and Promenades 323 



CHAPTER XVI 
Military History 336 



6 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

CHAPTER XVII 
Transportation 374 



CHAPTER XVIII 
Education 397 



CHAPTER XIX 
The Press 444 



CHAPTER XX 
Literature 462 



CHAPTER XXI 
Art, Music and Drama 469 



CHAPTER XXII 
Churches of Memphis 499 



CHAPTER XXIII 
The Bench and Bar 520 



CHAPTER XXIV 
Medical History 539 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 7 

CHAPTER XXV 

Societies and Clubs 553 



CHAPTER XXVI 

Banks and Insurance 579 



CHAPTER XXVII 

Commerce and Manufactures 586 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Young, J. P., portrait Frontispiece 

Facing Page 

Map of the City ' 60 ^ 

Buckingham, M. S., portrait 5,84 "^ 

DeSoto, Ferdinand, portrait 13 --"^ 

Fisher, F. N., portrait 392 "^ 

Forrest, N. B., portrait 355 \/ 

Galloway, R., portrait 334 ^ 

Garnsey, Cyrus, Jr., portrait 576 ■ ' 

Hanson, C. C, portrait 439/ 

Harrison, Walter II., portrait 443 '^' 

Henning, B. G., portrait 549 y^ 

Jackson, Andrew, portrait 58 - 

Keating, J. M., portrait 177 ''' 

LeMaster, E. B., portrait 258 

Love, Geo. C, portrait 305 -'' 

Malone, Jas. II., portrait 263 

Maury, E. B., portrait 574^ 

Meri weather, N., portrait 197^ 

McFarland, L. B., portrait 328 '^ 

Omberg, J. A., portrait 579 i/ 

Overton, John, portrait 69 • 

Pickett, A. B., portrait 491 ' 

Randolph, Wm. M., portrait 162 

Speed, R. A., portrait 396 

Taylor, A. R., portrait 371 

Toof, S. C, portrait 449 

Tutwiler, T. H., portrait 395 

Winchester, James, portrait 63 

Wright, E. E., portrait 538 

Wright, Luke E., portrait 183 



CHAPTER I 



The Chickasaw Bluffs and the Aborigines. The Great, Silent 
Continent. Habits and Customs of the Indians. Choctaw 
Legend of the Bluffs. The Story of DeSoto. With Pizarro 
in Peru. He Plans the Conquest of Florida. DeSoto 's 
Dream of Gold. His Army and Knightly Commanders. 
The March Through Florida. Cruelties of the Spaniards. 
Toils and Sufferings of the Troops. On the Savannah 
River. DeSoto Turns Westward. The Battle of Mauvila. 
DeSoto Enters MississiDui. He Winters at Chicaca. Terri- 
ble Battle with the Chickasaw Indians. Sad Plight of 
the Spaniards. The Battle of Alibamo. The March to the 
Chickasaw Bluffs. DeSoto Discovers the Mississippi River. 
Chisca's Fortress on Jackson Mound. Story of the Dis- 
covery by the Spanish Chroniclers. DeSoto 's Sojourn 
Here. He Builds Huts and Then Boats. He crosses the 
River and Disappears in the West. 



m 



HEN the light of history first began to illumine the 
story and traditions of the lower Chickasaw Bluff 
on the Mississippi River on the day that DeSoto 
arrived, May 8, 1541, the civilization of western Europe was 
yet young. Henry the Eighth was king of England and 
Queen Elizabeth still a young child. Shakespeare was yet to 
be born twenty-three years later, Galileo and Kepler, the 
fathers of modern astronomy, twenty-three and thirty years 
later respectively, Cromwell after fifty-eight years, Milton 
after sixty-seven years and Sir Francis Bacon, the proposer of 
inductive reasoning, the basis of all modern science, was not 
to open his eyes upon the world for yet twenty years to come. 
For centuries America had slept, a great, silent continent, 
undisturbed by the boom of guns or the crash of arms. There 
was no traffic along highways and rivers and her stillness was 



10 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

unbroken by any sound louder than the yell of the savage or 
the bark of the wolf. Her inhabitants were red nomads, of 
savage habits, but great mentality, and popularly known as 
Indians, as they were supposed at first to be connected in 
some way on the west with the East Indies. These were thinly 
scattered throughout the territory now occupied by the United 
States, living for protection mostly in groups of villages, con- 
structed of upright logs or poles, the huts being covered with 
sections of bark taken from certain trees and sometimes 
defended by stockades of logs laboriously chopped down with 
the stone hatchets of the Indians and buried deeply at one end 
in the ground. These Indians possessed no iron out of which 
to forge tools or weapons, the tips to the latter, usually arrows 
only, being wrought as in the stone age, of flint and their 
hatchets in many instances being made of green porphyry 
brought from great distances, but more often of flint ground 
or rubbed smooth. 

Their villages were commonly imbedded at some central 
point in the country occupied by the tribe and between the 
borders of their territory and that of the next tribe was usually 
a neutral strip of considerable and sometimes vast extent, 
claimed by one or both contiguous tribes as a hunting ground, 
but never permanently occupied. About their villages were 
extensive cleared fields in which they raised crops of maize, 
called by the Indians mahiz, which means Indian corn as now 
known. They likewise grew large quantities of beans, 
pumpkins and squash, which, together with nuts and dried 
meats prepared from the wild game of the forest, afforded 
them subsistence. The southeastern Indian tribes, and prob- 
ably others also, prepared oils from the nuts of the woods, 
such as walnuts, pecans and hickory nuts, which were pro- 
nounced by the early Spaniards to be a very fine relish, and 
they made large quantities of oil from the fat of bears, which 
they used as lard. The family ties were very strong with most 
tribes of Indians and their tenderness and affection for their 
children was a striking trait of these people. 

Confining our inquiry to those tribes which had relations 
with the Chickasaw bluffs, that part of the United States 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 11 

between the Savannah River and the Mississippi and south 
of the Tennessee River was, in 1541, covered by a distinctive 
racial population known as Appalachees. Between the 
Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, and southeastward into 
North Alabama and Georgia and in East Tennessee the Chero- 
kees were then located. The Appalachees were divided into 
a number of tribes which were bound by no political ties and 
were very exclusive. Among these were the Seminoles of 
Florida, the Uchees in Northern Georgia, the M.auvila or 
Mobilians in Southern Alabama, the Chickasaws in North 
Mississippi and West Tennessee, the Creeks or Muscogees in 
Georgia and Southeastern Alabama, the Choctaws in Central 
Mississippi and Alabama, and the Natchez in Southern Missis- 
sippi and Louisiana. The Akansas and Quapaws, of Siouan 
stock and of the same blood as the Omahas, occupied the west 
bank of the Mississippi opposite Memphis and at the date of 
DeSoto 's arrival the large tribe occupying, with its chief town 
and fortress known as Chisca, the site of modern Memphis, 
seemed to be subject to the tribes across the river under a 
great chief known as the lord or chief of Pacaha or, by other 
chroniclers called Capaha, probably the Spanish for Quapa, 
which was likewise the name of a town. This tribe at the 
lower Chickasaw bluffs was not related to the Chickasaws and 
was probably a colony of the trans-Mississippi settlers. The 
brave Chickasaws whose northern resident limit was in part 
the Tallahatchie River were then, as always afterwards, though 
few in numbers, the dominant race of Indians south and west 
of the Tennessee River and indeed, of the present Eastern Gulf 
States, though West Tennessee was in the time of DeSoto, as 
in the days of LaSalle and Bienville claimed, but used only 
as a hunting ground by them. 

All these tribes kept up a pretty constant communication 
with each other, their embassies or delegations of chief men, 
passing over vast distances, undisturbed by the tribes through 
whose territory they traveled, always on foot, as they possessed 
neither horses nor cattle. But they would frequently, through 
some real or fancied slight or injury, go to war with each 
other and they always guarded their well-known boundaries, 



12 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

as well as their more vaguely defined hunting grounds, with 
jealous care and determination. 

Choctaw legend gives to the site of Memphis a fantastic 
interest in its narrative of mythical events of great antiquity. 
The legend relates that many centuries ago the Choctaws and 
Chickasaws, led by two brothers, Chacta and Chicsa, came from 
the far west. On crossing the Mississippi River they found 
the country occupied by the Nahonla, giants who were very 
fair and had come from the East. There was also a race of 
giants here who were cannibals and who kept the mammoths, 
animals whose great bones are found everywhere in the clay 
and gravel deposits of the lower Mississippi Valley, herded, 
and used them to break down the forests, thus causing the 
prairies. At last all the cannibals and their gigantic mam- 
moths, except one of the latter, which lived near the Tombigbee 
River, became extinct. The Great Spirit attempted to destroy 
him with lightning, but he foiled the bolts by receiving them on 
his head. Finally being hard pressed by the Great Spirit, he 
fled to the Socta-Thoufah, "steep bluffs," (now Memphis), 
cleared the river at a bound and hied him away to the Rocky 
Mountains.* 

It was through tribes like these above described that 
DeSoto hewed his bloody way from Tampa Bay, Florida, to the 
Mississippi River, lured by that "auri sacra fames," the 
accursed thirst for gold, undergoing the most dreadful toil 
and suffering, but never finding the gold. El Dorado the 
Golden, or the riches embodied in the wild dream of Cabeza 
de Vaca. He was moreover unconscious of the fact as he 
journeyed and toiled that the soil of the lands beneath his 
feet has proven one of the world's greatest sources of wealth, 
and that a single cotton crop raised on these same lands now 
produces more gold than existed in all Europe during his era. 

As the lower Chickasaw bluffs first came into prominence 
in the world's history on the arrival of DeSoto, a brief abstract 
of his journey and exploits will be here given, derived from 

*One may readily discover the origin of this legend in the coming 
of DeSoto with his horses and guns across the Tombigbee and his 
crossing the river at Memphis. 







r lEi^ © p!3AN H) © E S©T® 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 13 

the original narrative of "The Portuguese Gentleman," Ran- 
jeld, DeSoto's private secretary, Biedma and Garcilaso de la 
Vega all, except the last named, companions of his march, and 
whose writings have come down to us and now exist in several 
splendid translations.* But this will be preceded by a short 
sketch of his life.t 

Hernando DeSoto, frequently written Ferdinand DeSoto, 
was, according to the narrative of the Portuguese Gentleman, 
or the Gentleman of Elvas, the anonymous knight who was a 
companion on his great march through Florida, born at Xeres 
de Badajos in Spain, but the date of his birth is not by him 
given. Garcilaso de la Vega, commonly known as the Inca, 
gives his birthplace at Villa nueva de Barcarota, and Herrara 
assigns the same town as the birthplace and the date is fixed 
at about 1501. Buckingham Smith asserts that he was born 
at Xeres in the province of Estremadura, and the Encyclopedia 
Brittanica names Xeres de Caballeros in Estremadura as the 
place where he first saw the light and the year 1496 as the 
date. He was said to have been of gentle birth on both his 
father's and mother's side, but was without means, his whole 
possessions, according to the Knight of Elvas, being his sword 
and buckler. DeSoto was indebted to his patron Pedro Arias 
de Avila, generally written Pedrarias Davila, whose attention 
he had attracted, for the means of acquiring his education. 
With Davila he went when a mere youth, to the "Indies of the 
Ocean, "$ or the West Indies, of which his patron had been 
appointed governor and was by the governor appointed to 
the command, as captain, of a company of cavalry. Soon after, 
by order of Davila, he took part with Pizarro in the Conquest 
of Peru. Here he greatly distinguished himself and attracted 

*The editor gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness, in obtain- 
ing correct data, to the splendid translations of the narratives of 
the Knight of Elvas, Biedma and Ranjel. collected in the Narratives 
of the Career of DeSoto by Edward Gaylord Bourne and published in 
the Trailmakers series in two volumes, A. S. Barnes & Co., New 
York, 1904, and to the earlier works of Theodore Irving. 

tThe editor does not apologise for this sketch of UeSoto and his 
long march from Tampa Bay, Florida, to the Chickasaw Bluff. It is 
logically the initial story in the History of Memphis. 

JPortuguese Narrative, page 7. 



14 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the attention of that shrewd but accomplished cut-throat who 
"soon singled him out from the hardy spirits around him and 
appointed him his lieutenant. Was there a service of special 
danger to be performed, DeSoto had it in charge ; was there 
an enterprise requiring sound judgment and careless daring, 
DeSoto was sure to be called upon."* 

DeSoto, narrates Garcilaso de la Vega, commanded one of 
the troops of horse which captured the Inca, Atahualpa and put to 
rout his army. He finally shared in the spoil wrung from this 
unfortunate prince and in the looting of Cuzco. He is alleged 
in the Spanish chronicles to have been the officer who indicated 
on the wall of the great room in the Inca's palace, by the reach 
of his arm and sword, the line to which the room was required 
to be filled with gold for his ransom, by the unfortunate 
monarch. He later returned to Spain laden with wealth, his 
share amounting to 180,000 cruzados or crowns of gold.t Here 
he lived at the court of the emperor in almost imperial style 
and loaned of his money to the shrewd Charles V. Soon after 
he was married to Dona Ysabel, daughter of his former patron 
Davila and was appointed by the emperor, Charles V, Governor 
and Captain General of Cuba and Florida with the more 
exalted civic title of Adelantado or President of Florida. 

DeSoto, after some delay, determined to attempt the con- 
quest of Florida, chiefly by reason of the reports brought from 
there by Cabeza de Vaca, one of the four survivors of the ill- 
fated Narvaez expedition, which led him to believe that the 
land contained rich treasures of gold.$ DeSoto for this pur- 
pose organized at his own expense an expedition composed of 
six hundred hardy adventurers,§ including many knights and 
soldiers of distinction and a brilliant escort of Portuguese 
hidaljos or gentlemen under Andre de Vasconcelo, and with 
these he sailed in seven ships April 6, 1538, from San Lucar de 
Borrameda for Santiago de Cuba and after nearly a year's 
sojourn in that island sailed May 8, 1539, for Florida and 
landed May 25, at Tampa Bay. 

*Irving's Conquest of Florida, page 36. 

fPortuguese Narrative, page 8. 

JPortuguese Narrative, page 8. 

§Garcilaso says this force was 950 strong. Irving, page 41. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 15 

DeSoto had, besides his foot soldiers, 224 horses, having 
lost 19 at sea. He also drove with his command a herd of hogs, 
partly for the support of his army, if meat should not be found, 
and partly with which to stock a colony if he should deem it 
expedient to found one. His march is one of the most remark- 
able for its toils and hardships and barrenness of results in all 
history, and strongly emphasized the imperious will as well 
as the greed of the adventurer. By some historians it is called 
DeSoto 's crazy march, but if he did not discover ''El Dorado, 
the Golden," which he is believed to have sought, he unques- 
tionably found what is to us vastly more important, the site 
of our splendid city. He also gave accurate information to 
all Europe of the nature of the interior of the country now 
constituting the East Gulf States of the American Union, with 
its rich plains and forests and mighty water courses, as well as 
of its brave aboriginal inhabitants, for the mastery of which 
Spain, France and England struggled for more than two cen- 
turies, when it was finally wrested from all of them by the 
young American Republic. 

DeSoto lost no time in getting off on his long march from 
the landing place at Tampa. The landing was made May 30, 
1539 at a village called Ocita and the march was begun June 1. 
The Spaniards on June 4, recaptured a Spanish captive named 
Juan Ortiz, who became their guide and interpreter. The 
Indians were brave and resentful and attacked the detach- 
ments of Spanish soldiers wherever found and this in turn 
moved the Spanish soldiers to reprisals and they inflicted the 
greatest cruelty on the brave Indians. The Spaniards killed 
many wantonly, running them down with their horses and 
spearing them when overtaken and also chased them with 
their Irish greyhounds, a species of large fierce dog, and caused 
the dogs to tear numbers of them in pieces. The line of march 
was through a rough, swampy country and the midsummer sun 
was hot, causing great suffering to the troops. The route from 
Tampa was in a long sweeping curve to the eastward and 
northward through many Indian villages, among others 



16 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Mocogo. Urri-Barra-Caxi* and Ocali to Vitachuco, where the 
Spaniards had a fierce battle. Here DeSoto turned northwest- 
wardly and probably crossing the Suwanee River above the 
old town of that name, reached, after a long march and many 
vicissitudes, the site of the modern city of Tallahassee. This 
was called Anhayca by the Gentleman of Elvas and Iviahica 
by Ranjel. Here DeSoto wintered in the Province of Apa- 
lachee. 

The journey was resumed March 3, 1540,t in a northeast- 
wardly direction, the line of march taking them almost in a 
straight line from Tallahassee, Florida, to the Savannah River 
some miles below Augusta, Georgia, crossing in their route the 
Ocmulgee and the Oconee, probably not far above the junction 
of these rivers, and the Ogeechee. The march was attended 
with much toil and sometimes almost with starvation. The 
principal Indian toAvns passed were Achise, Cofaqui and 
Cofachiqui, the latter thought to be about twenty-five miles 
below Augusta on the east side of the Savannah River. 

On May 13, 1540, DeSoto left Cofachiqui and marching 
northwest he crossed the country of Achelaque or Cherokee, a 
very poor and unproductive district, and reached the province 
of Xualla or Choualla, skirting the Savannah River and its 
northern tributaries, and rested May 21, in a town of the same 
name, probably in the vicinity of Clarksville, Georgia. Thence 
turning westward they marched through a rich province and 
across a chain of low, uninhabited mountains. They now 
passed through Conasaqua to Chiaha where, June 5, 1540, they 
again rested. Leaving Chiaha June 28, they followed the 
course of the Coosa River southwestward through the village 
of Aeoste July 2, and the present city of Rome in the extensive 
and fertile province of Cosa, or Coca, according to Ranjel, and 
reached Ulibahali September 2, 1540, and thence moved for- 
ward to Talise, reaching there September 18. 

DeSoto 's march was now continually down the Coosa 
River and he finally reached the fortified town of Tuscaloosa 

*Ranjel calls this place Orra-Porra-Cogi, and the Portuguese 
Gentleman, Paracaxi. 
fRanjel. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 17 

or "Black Warrior," which Ranjel calls Athahachi, October 
10, and still proceeding he arrived at the great Indian fortress 
of Mauvila, about twenty-five miles above the junction of the 
Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers. The Spaniards since leaving 
Cofachiqui on the Savannah River had been received in a friend- 
ly spirit by the Indians and had had little fighting. But under 
the inspiration of the great Indian Chief, Tuscaluza, the storm 
broke at Mauvila, into which town some of the Spaniards, in- 
cluding DeSoto, had been cunningly decoyed by Tuscaluza 
under pretense of showing them greater hospitality, and a 
terrible battle followed. This short sketch will not permit the 
details of this great conflict. After nine hours fighting DeSoto 
succeeded in burning the town, with its lightly built straw- 
thatched houses, and slew 2,500 or 3,000 of Tuscaluza 's war- 
riors. DeSoto lost only twenty-two of his own protected and 
mail-clad knights and cross-bowmen, killed, but one hundred 
forty-eight others received six hundred eighty-eight arrow 
wounds, while seven horses were killed and twenty-nine others 
wounded. The Spaniards also lost all their baggage which 
they had carelessly carried into the town and deposited in a 
building. 

Resting here a month to recuperate DeSota left Mauvila, 
determined in a dare-devil spirit to spy out the whole land and 
marching northwestward and conforming to the course of the 
Tombigbee River he again encountered the Indians, this time 
probably Choctaws, at the Black Warrior River a short dis- 
tance above its mouth. He was delayed several days to build 
two rafts or piraguas, with which to cross. Finally effecting 
a crossing here December 9, he moved forward and entered 
the state of Mississippi a short distance east of the present 
city of Columbus. He reached the Tombigbee, called by the 
Spaniards the River of the Chicacas, probably between the 
present town of Waverly and the mouth of Tibbee Creek, a 
short distance above Columbus. The Indians here, still of the 
Choctaw tribe, again opposed the crossing and DeSoto was 
delayed until he could build another raft or flat with which he 
ferried his men over the wide, deep stream. Baltasar de Galle- 
gos was sent with thirty horsemen up the stream to find a ford 



18 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

and turn the Indian position, which he did, but not before 
DeSoto had forced a passage with his footmen. Gallegos 
crossed almost certainly at the old Choctaw crossing or ford 
at or near Lincacums shoals. Claiborne says, "DeSoto probably 
entered the present state of Mississippi at Columbus, and 
followed an Indian trail or buffalo path some five miles up to 
Lincacums shoals, just about the mouth of the Tibbee and a 
little below the present town of Waverly. The Tombigbee here 
is bifurcated by an island, the first obstruction below Butta- 
hatchie. The gravel discharged from this stream lodged 
against the island and rendered both channels fordable a great 
part of the year, and this is the only point where the Spaniards 
could have forded in December. It was the crossing used by 
the Choctaws when going to the villages and hunting grounds 
east of the Tombigbee. The trail struck here a stretch of 
prairie, between Tibbee and Hanging Kettle creeks, and crossed 
the present Mobile and Ohio Railroad at Lookhattan, thence 
a little west of the railroad by Mulden, Prairie Station and 
Egypt. 

"The early settlers of this portion of Mississippi remem- 
ber the well-worn, beaten trail, long disused but distinctly 
defined, and can to this day trace it from plantation to plan- 
tation. 

' ' On leaving Egypt the trail tended northwest up the ridge 
known as Featherstone 's ridge, through a series of glades 
three or four miles west of Okolona, and up the second bottom 
on the east side of Sookatonchee Creek. There it struck Pon- 
totoc ridge four miles east of the ancient Chicasa council house. 
Near this point stood the first Chicasa town, and in this 
vicinity the Spaniards went into winter quarters. 

"At that period a portion of the Chickasaws still resided 
in the mountain region of East Tennessee, but a large body of 
them had taken possession of a territory where DeSoto found 
them, and their principal settlement or town, or series of 
villages, was on the ridge from the ancient council house (near 
Redland) north fifteen miles (near Pontotoc) and northwest 
on the 'mean prairie' eight or ten miles, within a few miles of 
Tallahatchie River. On the southern bluff was the Alabama 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 19 

fort or town, the stronghold of the tribe of that name, in alli- 
ance with the Chickasaws. 

"Four miles east of the ancient council house on the Pon- 
totoc ridge, near the source of Sookatonchee Creek are the 
vestiges of a fortified camp, evidently once strongly- 
entrenched, after the European style of that day, with bastions 
and towers. Leaden balls and fragments of metal have been 
often found in these ruins. The inclosure was square and the 
whole area, as evidenced by the remains, would have afforded 
shelter to the Spaniards and their live stock. 

"The ancient chronicles described the Chicasa town near 
which DeSoto halted, as containing two hundred houses, shaded 
by oak and walnut trees and with rivulets on each side. These 
requisitions are filled in the locality referred to. Beautiful 
groves of oak and hickory (which the Spaniards called wal- 
nut) abound, and living streams running west to the Yazoo 
and east to the Tombigbee."* 

Professor Theodore Hayes Lewis, in his article on the 
route of DeSoto, in Volume 6, Publications of the Mississippi 
Historical Society, furnishes this data: "Chicaca was a town 
of two hundred fires and was situated on a hill extending north 
and south, which was watered by many little brooks. It was 
located about one mile northwest of Redland on the S.y2 of 
the S.W.i/4 of Section 21, and the N.1/2 of the N.W.14 of 
Section 28, town. 11, range 3, E., in Pontotoc County." 

The crossing was effected by DeSoto December 16, 1540 
(Ranjel), in all likelihood at or in the immediate vicinity of 
Columbus. He immediately rode forward to find a suitable 
town for winter quarters, as the weather was becoming cold, 
and late at night entered a small, deserted village of twenty 
houses (Ranjel), where Baltasar De Gallegos joined him the 
next day. This was not the capital of Chicasa as some assume 
from the somewhat confused accounts of the narrators. Gar- 
eelaco says, (Richelet's translation, tome 2, p. 352) that after 
he crossed the river they marched four days and reached the 
capital of the Chicacas, a town of two hundred fires, and 

♦Claiborne's Mississippi as a Province, Territory and State, page 
five. 



20 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Ranjel says that they spent that Christmas at Chicaca. This 
was, as above stated, near Redland, Pontotoc County, Missis- 
sippi. 

Here snow fell heavily at Christmas and the weather 
became very cold and DeSoto constructed for his army a 
fortified camp, building his huts with material and straw 
obtained from the neighboring villages. (Richelet, tome 2, 
p. 353.) 

Here he remained comfortably cantoned until March 4, 
1541, when, designing to march to the Mississippi River, he 
demanded two hundred carriers or porters from the Chicasas. 
The proud tribe rebelled at this menial service and that night 
attacked his camp from four directions, set fire to the straw- 
thatched huts and burned the whole camp, destroying the 
baggage and clothing of the Spaniards, who were caught 
unawares, and rendering useless most of their weapons. DeSoto 
lost twelve men and fifty-nine horses in this combat. 

DeSoto now removed to a small village three miles distant 
called Chicacilla or little Chicasa, near Pontotoc, where he 
improvised a forge of bear-skins and gun-barrels and retem- 
pered his burned weapons and made new saddles and lance- 
handles or staffs and again repulsed the Indians who attacked 
him March 15th. On Tuesday, April 26, DeSoto, having learned 
from captive Indians of the character of the country to the 
northwestward, left the vicinity of Pontotoc and began his 
march to the Mississippi River at the lower ChickasaAv Bluffs, 
the site of Memphis. Following the beaten trail and bearing 
to the northwest, he reached the Tallahatchie River near Rocky 
Ford on April 28, and found the Indians of another tribe 
entrenched in a strong stockade on a bluff overhanging the 
narrow, deep river, the fortress being called Alibamo or, as 
spelled by Ranjel, Alimarau, and had here another severe con- 
flict with the Indians, driving them from the stockade across 
the river on some fragile log bridges which they had impro- 
vised. Unable to cross there with his horsemen DeSoto, desir- 
ous to punish the brave Indians for defending their homes, rode 
up the river a short distance to Rocky Ford and crossing, 
pursued them with great slaughter for a league with a loss to 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 21 

himself in the battle of eight killed and twenty-six wounded. 
(Biedma).* 

Providing litters for his wounded, fifteen of whom died on 
the way, DeSoto set out April 30, 1541, for the lower Chickasaw 
Bluffs, called by the Portuguese Gentleman and Biedma Quiz- 
quiz, by Ranjel, Quisqui and by Garcilaso, Chisca. Of this 
march, which consumed eight days, and the arrival at Chisca, 
the site of the city of Memphis, May 8, 1541, the editor will use 
Richelet's version of Garcilaso de la Vega, 1731, translated by 
Mr. Robert B. Goodwin, of Memphis, as it differs in several 

*It seems certain that DeSoto found the Indian fortress Alibamo 
and made his crossing of the Tallahatchie River at Rocky Ford. No 
other point in the river suits the description given in the Spanish 
narratives. Garcelaso De Vega says of the fort, "In the labt stockade 
were three gates or portals opening upon a narrow and very deep 
little river which flowed in the rear of the fort and over which was 
thrown some bad conditioned bridges. The banks of the stream were 
so high that they could not be climbed by horses." The fort is on a 
direct line from the Chickasaw town near Redlands, Mississippi, to 
the Chickasaw Bluff at Memphis, also on an ancient Indian trail. In 
confirmation of this conclusion the editor gives this letter from Mr. 
Chas. Lee Crum, an attorney of New Albany, Mississippi and an old 
resident of that vicinity: 

"Your favor of 20th to hand asking for information as to the 
character of the country at Rocky Ford, in the west end of this. Union 
County. In reply I have to say that there is not probably a man in 
this country that is more familiar with every part of Tallahatchie 
River from New Albany west to the LaFayette and Marshall counties 
line than I am. 

"Rocky Ford is now Etta, that is, the post oflSce is called Etta, 
and you will find it on the maps of Mississippi this way. There is a 
hill at least 100 feet high that comes in from the southwest and 
abruptly stops at the river. There is a precipitation almost perpen- 
dicular probably 50 feet high and not more than 150 yards below the 
old ford from which the place took Its name. The hill is largely 
composed of very large lime rocks, and when I crossed this ford 35 
years ago there was at least one large rock in the ford that probably 
would have weighed 60 tons or more, besides a number of smaller 
rocks. This ford has not been used for a public road for thirty years, 
I suppose, there having been a bridge made over the river half mile 
below. 

"I have always been of the opinion that DeSoto crossed Talla- 
hatchie one-half mile below New Albany, Miss., and that the Indian 
trail you mentioned also crossed here. This crossing has existed 
as far back as the white man can remember, and the bottom of the 
river here is a solid rock. I have always thought that this crossing 
gave the river its name which, I understand, means 'rock-river.' At 
this point there is a point of land above overflows that reaches to the 
river, and the bottom on the north or west side at this place is not 
more than 400 yards wide. However, at Rocky Ford, we have the 
only bluff that I know of on the river west of New Albany." 



22 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

important respects from the version of Theodore Irving, 1851. 
Riehelet says: 

"I return to where I was in my history. The Spaniards 
in leaving Alibamo, marched across a waste country bearing 
always towards the north in order to get further and further 
away from the sea, and at the end of three days they came in 
view of the capital of Chisca, which bears the name of its 
province and of its ruler. This town is situated near a river 
which the Indians called Chucagua, the largest of all those 
encountered by our people in Florida. The inhabitants of 
Chisca, unaware of the coming of the troops, by reason of the 
war which they were waging with their neighbors, were taken 
by surprise. The Spaniards plundered them and took several 
of them prisoners. The rest of them fled, some into a forest 
between the village and the river, and others to the house of 
the Cacique, which stood upon a high mound commanding a 
view of the whole place. The Cacique was old, and then sick 
upon his bed, in a condition of great weakness. He was of 
such small stature and of such meagre visage that in that 
country the like had never been seen. Nevertheless at the 
sound of the alarm and being surprised that his subjects were 
being plundered and being taken prisoners, he arose, walked 
out of his chamber with a battle axe in his hand and made the 
threat that he would slay all who might enter his lands with- 
out his leave. But as he was about to go forth from his house 
to confront the Spaniards, the women of his household, aided 
by some of his subjects who had made their escape from the 
Spaniards, restrained him. "With tears in their eyes they 
reminded him of the fact that he was feeble, without men at 
arms, his vassals in disorder, and not in condition for fighting 
and that those with whom he had to do were vigorous, well 
disciplined, great in number and, for the most part, mounted 
upon beasts of such speed that none could ever escape them. 
That it was necessary, then, to await a favorable occasion for 
their revenge and to deceive their enemies in the meantime by 
fair appearances of friendship, thus preventing the destruction 
of himself and his subjects. 

"These considerations caused Chisca to pause, but he was 
so chagrined by the injury which the Spaniards had done him, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 23 

that instead of being willing to listen to the envoys of the 
general in their demands for peace, he declared war upon them, 
adding that he hoped within a short while to cut the throat of 
their captain and all those with him. 

"DeSoto, however, was not astonished at this, but sent 
others and they made excuses for the disorder created upon 
their arrival, and repeated the demand for peace. 

"For it was clear to DeSoto that his men were discouraged 
on account of the constant skirmishing, and were encumbered 
with sick men and sick horses ; that in less than six hours there 
had come to the side of the Cacique not less than four thousand 
men, quite well equipped ; that in all probability he would get 
together a very much larger number; besides, that the lay of 
the land was very favorable to the Indians, and very unfavor- 
able to the Spaniards, on account of the thicket surrounding 
the town, which would make it impossible to use his cavalry ; 
that finally, instead of making progress by fighting, the Span- 
iards were working their own destruction from day to day. 
These were the considerations which induced the general to 
offer peace. 

"But the larger part of the Indians who were assembled 
to deliberate upon the subject had quite contrary views. Some 
were for war, believing that to be the only means of recovering 
their goods and delivering their companions from the power of 
the Spaniards. They declared that there need be no fear of 
such people ; that such earnest demands for peace as the 
Spaniards made afforded certain proof of their cowardice; 
finally, that it was fitting to apprise them of the courage of 
those whom they had just attacked by giving battle in turn, to 
the end that no stranger in future would have the temerity 
to enter their domain. But the other side contended that peace 
was their only means of getting back their property and their 
imprisoned countrymen ; that if there should be a battle their 
misery would only be increased by reason of fire and the loss 
of their crops, (which were still unharvested), resulting in 
ruin to the entire province and the death of many of their 
people. 

"For they said inasmuch as their enemies had come as far 



24 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

as their country, through so many trials and perils and through 
so many fierce tribes, their courage could not be fairly doubted. 
Thus they said that without any other proofs, peace ought to 
be made, and that if they were afterwards dissatisfied they 
could break the truce to a much better advantage than they 
could on that day make war. This opinion prevailed and the 
Cacique, dissembling his resentment, asked the envoys what 
they thought to gain by this peace, which they seemed to 
desire so much. They answered, their lodging in the town, 
together with supplies for passing on. Chisca agreed to all on 
condition that they should set at liberty those of his subjects 
whom the Spaniards held prisoners, return all the goods that 
they had seized, and not enter into his house ; and he warned 
them that the only alternative would be war of extermination. 
The Spaniards accepted peace on these conditions and released 
the subjects of Chisca, for they had no lack of Indian servants, 
and returned all the booty — consisting only of some sorry 
deerskins and clothing of small value. Thereupon the inhabi- 
tants abandoned the town with the supplies which they had 
and the Spaniards remained six days, treating their sick. On 
the last day DeSoto got leave from Chisca to visit him in his 
house, and after he had thanked him for the favor done his 
troops he withdrew, proceeding the next day upon his journey 
of discovery." 

Besides Garcilaso, whose narrative has just been given, 
three companions of DeSoto also told the story of the approach 
to and occupation of the town of Chisca on the lower Chicka- 
saw Bluff, now the site of Memphis. Inasmuch as some writers 
have endeavored to show from these narratives that DeSoto 
probably reached the Mississippi River at or about the thirty- 
fourth parallel of latitude and not at Memphis, the narratives 
will be given here in full* in order that the reader may judge 
for himself of the correctness of the conclusion drawn by the 
editor in common with Ramsey and Claiborne, that the lower 
Chicasaw Blufl', with its big mound, was the place where DeSoto 
first saw the great inland river. 

The first of these narratives to be quoted is that of the 
*By permission of the publishers, A. S. Barnes & Co., N. Y. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 25 

Gentleman of Elvas, usually referred to as the Portuguese 
Gentleman. This narrative is as follows : 

"He accordingly set out for Quizquiz and marched seven 
days through a wilderness having many pondy places, with 
thick forests, all fordable however on horseback except some 
basins or lakes that were swum. He arrived at a town of 
Quizquiz without being descried and seized all the people 
before they could come out of their houses. Among them was 
the mother of the Cacique; and the Governor sent word to 
him by one of the captives to come and receive her with the 
rest he had taken. The answer he returned was that if his 
lordship would order them to be loosed and sent, he would 
come to visit and do him service. 

"The Governor, since his men arrived weary and likewise 
weak for want of maize and his horses were also lean, deter- 
mined to yield to the requirement and try to have peace; so 
the mother and the rest were ordered to be set free and with 
words of kindness were dismissed. The next day, while he was 
hoping |g see the chief, many Indians came with bows and 
arro>^l^|||■ set upon the Christians, when he commanded that all 
the arlned horsemen should be mounted and in readiness. 
Finding them prepared, the Indians stopped at the distance of 
a cross-bow shot from where the Governor was, near a river- 
bank, where, after remaining quietly half an hour, six chiefs 
arrived at the camp, stating that they had come to find out 
what people it might be; for they had knowledge from their 
ancestors that they were to be subdued by a white race ; they 
consequently desired to return to the Cacique to tell him that 
he should come presently to obey and serve the Governor. 
After presenting six or seven skins and shawls brought with 
them they took their leave and returned with the others who 
were waiting for them by the shore. The Cacique came not, 
nor sent another message. 

"There was little maize in the place and the Governor 
moved to another town, half a league from the great river, 
where it was found in sufficiency. He went to look at the river 
and saw that near it there was much timber of Which piraguas 
might be made, and a good situation in which the camp might 
be placed. He directly moved, built houses, and settled on a 



26 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

plain a cross-bow shot from the water, bringing together all the 
maize of the towns behind, that at once they might go to work 
and cut down the trees for sawing out planks to build barges. 
The Indians soon came from up the stream, jumped on the 
shore and told the Governor that they were vassals of a great 
lord named Aquixo, who was the suzerain of many towns and 
people on the other shore ; and they made known from him that 
he would come the day after, with all his people to hear what 
his lordship would command him. 

"The next day the Cacique arrived with two hundred 
canoes filled with men having weapons. They were painted 
with ochre, wearing great bunches of white and other plumes 
of many colors, having feathered shields in their hands, with 
which they sheltered the oarsmen on either side, the warriors 
standing erect from bow to stern, holding bows and arrows. 
The barge in which the Cacique came had an awning at the poop 
in which he sat ; and the like had the barges of the other chiefs ; 
and there from under the canopy where the chief man was 
the course was directed and orders issued to the rest. All 
came down together and arrived within a stone's cast of the 
ravine, whence the Cacique said to the Governor, who was 
walking along the river bank with others who bore him com- 
pany, that he had come to visit, serve and obey him; for he had 
heard that he was the greatest of lords, the most powerful of 
all the earth and that he must see what he would have him do. 
The Governor expressed his pleasure and besought him to 
land that they might the better confer; but the chief gave no 
reply, ordering three barges to draw near wherein was a great 
quantity of fish and loaves like bricks, made of the pulp of 
ameixas (persimmons), which, DeSoto receiving, gave him 
thanks and again entreated him to land. 

"Making the gift had been a pretext to discover if any 
harm might be done ; but finding the Governor and his people 
on their guard the Cacique began to draw off from the shore, 
when the crossbowmen, who were in readiness, with loud cries 
shot at the Indians and struck down five or six of them. They 
retired with great order, not one leaving tlie oar, even though 
the next one to him might have fallen and covering themselves 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 27 

they withdrew. Afterwards they came many times and landed ; 
when approached they would go back to their barges. These 
were fine looking men, very large and well formed ; and what 
with the awnings, the plumes and the shields, the pennons and 
the number of people in the fleet, it appeared like a famous 
armada of galleys. 

"During the thirty days that were passed here four 
piraguas were built, into three of which one morning three 
hours before daybreak, the Governor ordered twelve cavalry 
to enter, four in each, men in whom he had confidence, that 
they would gain the land, notwithstanding the Indians, and 
secure the passage or die. He also sent some crossbowmen on 
foot with them, and in the other piragua oresmen to take 
them to the opposite shore. He ordered Juan de Guzman to 
cross with the infantry, of which he had remained captain in 
the place of Francisco Maldonado ; and because the current 
was stiff they went up along the side of the river a quarter 
of a league and in passing over they were carried down so as 
to land opposite the camp ; but before arriving there at twice 
the distance of a stone's cast, the horsemen rode out from the 
piraguas to an open area of hard and even ground, which they 
all reached without accident. 

"So soon as they had come to the shore the piraguas 
returned, and when the sun was up two hours high the people 
had all got over. The distance was near half a league ; a man 
standing on the shore could not be told whether he was a man 
or something else from the other side. The stream was swift 
and very deep ; the water always flowing turbidly brought along 
from above many trees and much timber, driven onward by its 
force." 

The narrative of Biedma is much briefer than the other 
two and is thus given: 

"We traveled eight days with great care in tenderness of 
the wounded and sick we carried. One midday we came upon 
a town called Quizquiz and so suddenly to the inhabitants that 
they were without any notice of us, the men being away at 
work in the maize fields. We took more than three hundred 
women and a few skins and shawls they had in their houses. 



28 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

There we first found a little walnut of the country (pecans), 
which is much better than that here in Spain. The town was 
near the banks of the river Espiritu Santo (The River of the 
Holy Spirit.) They told us that it was, with many towns about 
there, tributary to the lord of Pacaha, famed throughout all 
the land. When the men heard that we had taken their women 
they came to us peacefully, requesting the Governor to restore 
them. lie did so and asked them for canoes in which to pass 
that great river. These they promised, but never gave ; on 
the contrary they collected to give us battle, coming in sight 
of the town where we were ; but in the end, not venturing to 
make an attack, they turned and retired. 

"We left that place and went to encamp by the riverside 
to put ourselves in order for crossing. On the other shore we 
saw a number of people collected to oppose our landing, who 
had many canoes. We set about building four large piraguas, 
each capable of taking sixty or seventy men and five or six 
horses. We were engaged in the work twenty-seven or twenty- 
eight days. During this time the Indians every day at three 
o'clock in the afternoon would get into two hundred and fifty 
very large canoes they had, well shielded, and come near the 
shore on which we were; with loud cries they would exhaust 
their arrows upon us and then return to the other bank. After 
they saw that our boats were at the point of readiness for cross- 
ing they all went off leaving the passage free. We crossed the 
river in concert, it being nearly a league in width and nineteen 
or twenty fathoms deep." 

The last of these narratives is by Ranjel, the secretary of 
DeSoto, who thus narrates the occurrences at the Chickasaw 
bluffs : 

"Saturday, the last of April, the army set out from the 
place of the barricade and marched nine days through a 
deserted country and by a rough way, mountainous and swampy, 
until May 8, when they came to the first village of Quizqui, 
which they took by assault and captured much people and 
clothes; but the Governor promptly restored them to liberty 
and had everything restored to them for fear of war, although 
that was not enough to make friends of these Indians. A 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 29 

league beyond this village they came to another with abundance 
of corn and soon again after another league upon another like- 
wise amply provisioned. There they saw the great river. 
Saturday, May 21, the force went along to a plain between the 
river and a small village and set up quarters and began to 
build four barges to cross over to the other side. Many of 
these conquerers said that this river was larger than the 
Danube. 

"On the other side of the river about seven thousand 
Indians had got together with about two hundred canoes to 
defend the passage. All of them had shields made of cane 
joined so strong and so closely interwoven vdth such thread 
that a cross-bow could hardly pierce them. The arrows came 
raining down so that the air was full of them and their yells 
were something fearful. But when they saw that the work 
on the barges did not relax on their account, they said that 
Pacaha, whose men they were, ordered them to withdraw and 
so they left the passage free. And on Saturday, June 8, (June 
18), the whole force crossed this great river in the four barges 
and gave thanks to God because in His good pleasure nothing 
more difficult could confront them. Soon, on Sunday, they 
came to a village of Aquixo. Tuesday, June 21, they went from 
there and passed by the settlement of Aquixo, which is very 
beautiful and beautifully situated. ' ' 

Comparing these four narratives, which are in peculiar 
agreement with each other, except the last, it can readily be 
seen that Ran j el, in speaking of the villages a league apart to 
which the Spaniards moved in turn for the purpose of obtain- 
ing provisions, was merely describing the usual group of 
villages which went to make up a settlement among these 
Indians such as the Spaniards found at the Chickasa towns in 
Pontotoc County, Mississippi, and in no way contradicts the 
other narratives. The fact seems to be that DeSoto came upon 
the town of Chisca where the great mound was and still 
remains, which was near the wide river with a forest between 
and then, without reaching the river, he moved from village to 
village on the bluff for more convenient access to corn or maize, 
by which his army was supported, and finally pitched his camp 



30 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

under the bluff at the foot of a ravine probably near the mouth 
of Wolf River and within cross-bow shot of the water, where 
he constructed and launched his boats. Again the Gentleman 
of Elvas narrates that: "The Rio Grande being crossed, the 
Governor marched a league and a half to a large town of 
Aquixo, which was abandoned before his arrival." 

And this statement again tends to locate the crossing at 
Memphis, as, from the opposite bank, it is four and a half miles 
or a league and a half to the high point at Mound City, Arkan- 
sas, where a great mound still stands and which was the site 
of another Indian village in ancient times. And from Mound 
City westward in a winding course a ridge extends which 
affords probably the only dry crossing through the swamps 
from the river west to the highlands, during high waters which 
usually prevail at that season of the year, between Cairo, 
Illinois and Helena, Arkansas. 



CHAPTER II 



The Chickasaw Bluffs Under Spain. The Coming of the 
Frenchmen. Voyage of Marquette and Joliet. The 
Journey of LaSalle. The Site of Fort Prudhomme. The 
Town of Mitchigamea. The Mouth of the Mississippi 
River. The Country Claimed for France. Bienville at 
the Bluffs. The Voyage up the River. The Building of 
Fort Assumption. War with the Chickasaws. Failure of 
Bienville. Diary of his Sojourn on the Chickasaw Bluffs. 
Terrible Indian Customs. Again Under the Dominion of 
Spain. Cession of the Country to Great Britain. The 
Province of Carolina. Grant of Charles II to the Lords 
Proprietors. Once More Under the Dominion of Spain. 
Don Manuel Gayoso De Lemos. Fort San Fernando de 
Barancas. Trouble with the Spaniards. Arrival of Captain 
Isaac Guion. The Americans Take Possession. The 
Chickasaw Bluffs Become Part of Tennessee. Our Chick- 
asaw Allies. American Forts Here. 



•P* E SOTO was Adelantado of Florida and all interior 
*lpl America was Florida to him, so that he left no record 
''"* of having claimed by virtue of discovery for his 
sovereign the vast wilderness which he traversed on his way 
from Tampa Bay to the Mississippi River, But by international 
right Spain was the owner and her king the sovereign of these 
great solitudes until dispossessed by later adventurers of other 
nations. 

After the departure of DeSoto the Indians lived undis- 
turbed on the lower Chickasaw Bluff and roamed the surround- 
ing solitudes in quest of game or in warfare with their neigh- 
bors for one hundred thirty-two years. In the meantime the 
Atlantic coast line had been settled and the French were 
extending their dominions beyond the Great Lakes in the 
northwest, but no white man since DeSoto 's time had ventured 



32 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

down the great inland river. In May, 1673 Father Marquette, 
a noted Jesuit priest and missionary of restless energy and 
wandering proclivities, with a Quebec trader named Louis 
Joliet and five other Frenchmen began ascending the Fox 
River from Lake Michigan in two canoes and about the tenth 
of June made a portage to the Wisconsin River and, descending 
that stream, on June 17, 1673, entered the Mississippi. Rowing 
slowly down the stream past the mouth of the Pekitanoui or 
Missouri, and the Ouabouskigou, or the Ohio, which they noted, 
the voyagers passed the lower Chickasaw Bluff early in July, 
1673, but made no stop. Soon after they passed the village of 
Mitchigameas, now Helena, Arkansas, below the mouth of the 
St. Francis River, and finally stopped about the site of the last 
of the villages of the Akansea below the mouth of the river of 
that name and about latitude 33° 40', but Father Marquette's 
map shows this village to be on the east side of the Mississippi 
River.* Remaining here until July 17, the missionary and his 
party began their journey northward again and once more 
passed the lower Chickasaw Bluff but no record is made of 
a stop here. Ilis map, however, contains certain symbols indi- 
cating high lands on the east bank about this latitude. 

Nine years later a more important personage, Sieur Robert 
Cavelier de la Salle, also attempted the exploration of the 
Mississippi River and carried out his enterprise with perfect 
success. He had with him twenty-three Frenchmen, including 
Sieur Henri de Tonti, and Father Piere Zenobe Membre, a 
recollet missionary, eighteen Indians, ten Indian women and 
three children, in all fifty-four persons. Reaching the Missis- 
sippi River by way of the Seignelay or Illinois River, on Feb- 
ruary 6, 1682, he left there in canoes on February 13, and rode 
slowly down to the mouth of the Ohio, stopping at intervals to 
hunt. Father Membre, in his narrative of the voyage, says: 
"From the mouth of this river you must advance forty-two 
leagues without stopping because the banks are low iand 
marshy and full of thick foam, rushes and walnut trees." 

*John Gilmary Shea's translation and authentic map of Father 
Marquette voyage, 1852. The original map was preserved at St. 
Mary's College, Montreal. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 33 

Forty-two French land leagues is equal to one hundred five 
miles, the exact distance from Cairo to the first Chickasaw 
Bluff, ten miles above Randolph, Tennessee, which stands on 
the second Chickasaw Bluff, and forty-two miles above Mem- 
phis by land courses. 

Here LaSalle stopped to hunt on the first high ground 
below the Ohio River, and one of his men, Piere Prudhomme, 
got lost in the woods on February 24, according to Father 
Membre. 

Finding some Chickasaw Indians in the vicinity LaSalle 
became alarmed and thinking they had captured his hunter 
and that they might attack his little escort he threw up a "fort 
and intrenchments," probably a stockade with a low parapet 
around it, and set out with a party to hunt for Prudhomme. 
Having at length found the lost hunter and some of the Indians, 
from whom he learned that their villages were four and a 
half days' journey of twenty-five or thirty miles each to the 
southeast, he finally left Fort Prudhomme about March 3, and 
proceeded on his journey down the river.* Proceeding forty 
French land leagues or one hundred miles further after leav- 
ing Fort Prudhomme, but making no stop at Memphis, or the 
lower Chickasaw Bluff, LaSalle reached the village of the 
Mitchigameas, now Helena, Arkansas, about March 12, and 
remaining there two days took possession of the country on the 
west bank of the Mississippi River in the name of his sovereign, 

♦Narrative of Father Membre, by John Gilmary Shea, 1852. The 
distance from the mouth of the Ohio River, forty-two leagues or 105 
miles, and the fact of its being the first highland after leaving the 
Ohio, shows that the site of Fort Prudhomme was at the first Chicka- 
saw Bluff and not at the fourth or lower bluff, as some writers allege. 
This fort was indeed a landmark for many years at the first Chicka- 
saw Bluff, where the Confederates during the Civil War built Fort 
Wright, ten miles above Randolph and not far above Fort Pillow. A 
map in Abbe Prevost's History General of Voyages and Discoveries, 
1749, shows the fort at the first Chickasaw Bluff; and the diary of a 
French officer who was with Bienville at the lower bluff in 1739. 
reprinted in Claiborne's History of Mississippi, refers to Prudhomme 
Heights several times as being on the river above Fort Assumption on 
the lower Chickasaw Bluff, where Memphis now stands. The state- 
ment that LaSalle established a trading post at Fort Prudhomme is a 
pure fiction. When returning up the river in June, 1682, he was 
taken ill at or about the site of Fort Prudhomme 100 leagues below 
the mouth of the Illinois River, (land courses), and remained there 
forty days. 



34 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the King of France, March 14, 1682, and erected a cross there.* 
Leaving on the seventeenth of the same month, LaSalle stopped 
as he passed down the river at the other villages of the 
Akansea, beginning fifteen miles below Mitchigamea, and 
occupying the adjacent country on the west bank of the river 
to latitude 33° 40', below the mouth of the Arkansas River. 
Having finally reached the mouth of the Mississippi River, 
or the passes, where the river divided itself into three channels, 
April 6, 1682, LaSalle erected a column on which was affixed 
the arms of France, with this inscription: 

Louis le Grande, 
ROI DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARRE, REIGNE ; 

Le Neuvieme Avril, 1682. 

The notary Jacques de la Metaire has left this description 
of the ceremony which followed, by which LaSalle took formal 
possession of the great Valley of the Mississippi in the name 
of his sovereign : 

"The whole party chanted the Te Deum, the Exaudiat, 
the Domine salvam fac Regem ; and then after a salute of 
firearms and cries of Vive le Roy, the column was erected by M. 
de la Salle who, standing near it, said with a loud voice in 
French: 'In the name of the Most High, Mighty, Invincible 
and Victorious Prince, Louis the Great, by the Grace of God, 
King of France and Navarre, fourteenth of that name, this 
ninth day of April, one thousand six hundred eighty-two ; I, 
in virtue of the commission of his Majesty, which I hold in my 
hand, and which may be seen by all whom it may concern, have 
taken and do now take, in the name of his Majesty, and of his 
successors to the crown, possession of this country of Louisiana, 
the seas, harbors, ports, bays, villages, mines, minerals, fish- 
eries, streams and rivers, comprised in the extent of the said 

♦Narrative of Father Membre, who calls this a village of the 
Acansea, but as we have seen above, Marquette gave it its true name 
of Mitchigamea, which it retained for many years. The Mitchigamea 
Indians, however, were an offshoot or colony of the great Acansea 
tribe. When it migrated westward before DeSoto's arrival, it broke in 
two parts. The right wing crossed the Mississippi River and went 
up the Missouri and were called Omaha, "up the river." The other 
branch went south and were called Quapaw, "down the river." Of 
these were the Mitchegamea. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 35 

Louisiana, from the mouth of the great river St. Louis, on the 
eastern side, otherwise called Ohio, Alighin, Sipore, or Chuk- 
agona, and this with the consent of the Chaouanons, Chikachas 
and other people dwelling therein, with whom we have made 
alliance; as also along the river Colbert or Mississippi and 
rivers which discharge themselves therein, from its source 
beyond the country of the Kious or Nadouessious and this, with 
their consent, and with the consent of the Motantees, Illinois, 
Mesigameas, Natches, Koreas, which are the most considerable 
nations dwelling therein, with whom also we have made alliance 
either by ourselves or by others in our behalf; as far as its 
mouth at the sea or Gulf of Mexico, about the 27th degree of 
the elevation of the North Pole, and also to the mouth of the 
River of Palms; upon the assurance which we have received 
from all these nations, that we are the first Europeans who have 
descended or ascended the said River Colbert ; hereby protest- 
ing against all those who may in future undertake to invade 
any or all of these countries, people or lands, above described, 
to the prejudice of the right of his Majesty, acquired by the 
consent of the nations herein named. Of which, and of all that 
can be needed, I hereby take to witness those who hear me, and 
demand an act of the notary, required by law. ' To which the 
whole assembly responded with shouts of Vive le Roy, and with 
salutes of firearms. Moreover the Sieur de la Salle caused to 
be buried at the foot of the tree to which the cross was attached, 
a leaden plate on one side of which was engraved the arms of 
France, and the following latin inscription : 

LVDOVICVS MAGNUS REGNAT. 
NONO APRILLIS CTO IDC LXXXII. 
ROBERTVS CAVELIER, CVM DOMINO DE TONTY, 
LEGATO, RP. ZENOBIO MEMBRE, RECOLLECTO, ET 
VIGINTI GALLIS, PRIMVS HOC FLYMEN, INDE AB 
ILINEORUM PAGO, ENAVIGAVIT, EJVSQVE OSTIVM 
FECIT PERVIUM, NONO APRILIS, ANNI CIO IOC 
LXXXII." 

It was by this form of procedure that the country where 
Memphis stands became a province of France and so remained 
until the year 1762. 



36 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

After thus solemnly declaring the rights of his sovereign 
Louis XIV, of France, to the whole of the Mississippi Valley 
lying between the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, 
LaSalle returned to Canada, passing up the Mississippi River 
to the Illinois and thence to Lake Michigan, not stopping at 
the lower Chickasaw Bluff but at the first Chickasaw Bluff or 
Fort Prudiiomme, where he was seriously ill for more than a 
month. 

Other Frenchmen, after LaSalle 's return, made voyages 
down the Mississippi, notably De Tonti, who passed down in 
1686 and again iu 1700, in an endeavor to find his friend 
LaSalle, who had sailed from France with ships and a colony 
to enter the mouth of the Mississippi, but failed to find it 
and landed further west. 

The next white man who is certainly known to have visited 
and taken possession of the lower Chickasaw Bluff after DeSoto 
left here was Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, a distin- 
guished French colonial governor and soldier, who arrived here 
in 1739. Bienville, then Governor of Louisiana, became 
involved in a war with the unconquerable Chickasaw Indians, 
whose group of villages were still where DeSoto found them, 
scattered in a long line from Redland near Pontotoc, Missis- 
sippi, to a point about three miles northwest of Tupelo in Lee 
County, Mississippi. Moving with an army up the Tombigbee 
River from Mobile, Bienville had ordered D'Artaguette to sup- 
port him with a force from the post at the Illinois fort to be 
landed at Fort Prudhomme on the first Chickasaw Bluff and to 
march thence and form a junction with him in the vicinity of the 
Chickasaw villages. Bienville was delayed and D'Artaguette 
arriving at Fort Prudhomme May 10, and at the objective 
point six days before Bienville reached there, attacked the 
Chickasaws May 20, 1736 and was terribly defeated, being 
himself wounded and captured and with thirteen companions, 
burned at the stake. Bienville arriving on May 26, and 
unaware of the defeat of his lieutenant, attacked the Chickasaw 
towns and was liimself disastrously defeated and coinpelled 
to retreat to Mobile. But Bienville possessed the nature of a 
bulldog and burning with shame and thirsting for vengeance, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 37 

he induced the French court to send him fresh troops. With 
these, Bienville, in July, 1739, proceeded up the Mississippi 
River in a fleet of pirogues, with a large force of troops and 
auxiliaries, including a contingent of about sixteen hundred 
Indian allies. Another force from the Illinois and Canada, 
under De la Buissonniere and three hundred northern Indians 
under Sieur de Longueuil had arrived first by his order and a 
fort was ])ui]t on the face of the bluff in the middle of August, 
called Fort Assumption. Bienville is estimated to have brought 
here twelve hundred white men and twenty-four hundred 
Indians, though from the details given by subordinate officers 
of the decimation of his army by malarial fevers, and the 
desertion of considerable bodies of Indians, it is not probable 
that he had here at any one time more than two thousand 
men. Bienville himself was delayed in collecting other Indian 
allies among the Akanseas and arrived here on November 14, 
1739. 

In a journal kept by a young French officer under De 
Noailles d'Aime, Bienville's chief commander, and reprinted 
in Claiborne's History of Mississippi, from a translation of 
the original French manuscript, many interesting and curious 
details are given of the sojourn of Bienville's forces on the 
site of the City of Memphis. Before quoting from his journal 
it may be stated that Bienville's intention was to collect an 
overwhelming force here and marching overland to the Chick- 
asaw villages, the scene of his first defeat, to avenge himself 
for his overthrow and that of his lieutenant, D'Artaguette, 
in May, 1736. He had b-een misled by his engineer, Deverge, 
who induced him to believe by his rudely constructed map 
that the Chickasaw towns were only about half the distance 
that they really were from Fort Assumption. Bienville spent 
the fall and winter here in laborious but futile endeavors to 
discover or cut out a practicable highway to the Chickasaw 
towns, the main group of which were, as above stated, about 
ninety-seven miles from the Chickasaw Bluff in an airline, but 
one at least of which must have been, from the descriptions of 
the French and Indian scouts, on the south side of the Talla- 
hatchie River near the site of the Indian fort called Alibamo, or 



38 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 



Alimamu, attacked by DeSoto on his approach to the bluff, as 
above described. There was a trail, in fact, from the first Chick- 
asaw Bluff to the Chickasaw towns which was used by D'Arta- 
guette even for his baggage wagons. This passed some dis- 
tance east of Memphis and was the trail sought but never 
discovered by Bienville. It probably crossed the Tallahatchie 
River at New Albany, Mississippi. 

The young French officer, whose name has not been 
preserved, among other things in his diary, describes Fort 
Assumption as constructed on our bluff. He says: 

"This fort has been constructed at the foot of the steeps 
of Margot River (Wolf River), three-fourths of a league to 
the right and in the middle days of August, which latter cir- 
cumstance has been the origin of its name Assumption. It is 
constructed of piles, three bastions bearing on the plain and 
two half bastions on the river, which is reached by seven 
different and wide slopes of one hundred and forty feet each. 
In the center of these slopes have been constructed bakeries 
and ovens scooped out of the walls of earth. The right was 
occupied by the battalion of regulars, and the left by various 
stores and the Colonial and Swiss troops. The remainder of 
the forces were encamped on the exterior, including the 
Canadians and savages, who encircled the whole of our left 
to the river." 

This description does not leave us in any doubt as to the 
location of this fort. It was described as being three quarters 
of a league to the right, that is from the head of the bluffs or 
steeps, which was in the vicinity of the south bank of Bayou 
Gayoso, near its mouth and just beyond our county jail. Three- 
fourths of a French land league at that date was about one and 
eighty-seven hundredths of an English mile, and this would 
put the site of Fort Assumption on the edge of the bluff and 
somewhere between Georgia Street and Jackson Mound, which 
point is also just west of the site of the Indian village of Chisea, 
first captured by DeSoto on his arrival. 

The diary further along proceeds as follows: 

"On the 27th there was found at a distance of one-fourth 
of a league from our camp a reed, through which had been 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 39 

passed a piece of English cloth in the shape of a pouch and 
filled with tobacco. At the top was an ear of corn, and 
beneath a bear skin, the whole encircled by a ring of some 
kind. Five Chic, savages had recently brought these enigmat- 
ical emblems which signified peace, both, according to the 
interpretation of our savages and the people of the colony. 
By the ear of corn they mean that they desire to eat of the 
same bread; by the tobacco, smoke together; and by the bear- 
skin within the circle, sleep under the same roof. This is a 
sufficient indication that they are much impressed with their 
own weakness, although we must give them credit for much 
hardihood and intrepidity, for not fearing to approach a spot 
about which five hundred savages are continually roaming." 

Other paragraphs describe the darker side of the savage 
nature. The narrator says: 

"On the 24th of November, we dispatched a party of 
fifty men upon the tracks of the 'Chicachat.' On the same 
day, at seven in the evening, we received a courier from a 
body of our Indians, who had fallen upon the 'Chics' and 
captured one man and two women (one of the latter being 
quite young), and killed another man whose scalp, ears, tongue 
and a portion of the heart they had sent us, the courier in the 
meantime having eaten a small portion of the heart whilst 
announcing the arrival of his comrades in the course of the 
next morning. ***** As they had decided firstly to put 
the man to death, they placed him opposite their cabin upon 
a couple of deer-skins, and between three fires to shield him 
from the coldness of the night, during which they sang and 
danced around him, occasionally throwing themselves upon 
him like rabid dogs and biting him in the thighs to keep him 
awake, assuring him in the meanwhile that as soon as the sun 
appeared he would be tied to the stake. Notwithstanding the 
awful treatment he neither complained nor spoke one word. 
***** On the 26th, at nine in the morning, he was tied to a 
stake, which consists of two poles or trees four feet apart, to 
each of which was fastened one arm and a cross piece below 
on which rest the feet. They then applied bars of red hot 
iron upon all the most sensitive parts of his body. He was 



40 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

exposed to these atrocities for three hours, at the end of which 
he expired." 

The greater part of the succeeding narrative is taken up 
with the various endeavors to find a feasible way to the 
Chickasaw towns which would admit of the usual army trans- 
port and with the description of the incidents connected with 
the life of the army here with their brutal Indian allies. On 
the 24th of December a French engineer, Saucier, endeavored 
to find the road made by D'Artaguette on his march from 
the first Chickasaw Bluff to the Chickasaw towns, but without 
avail. On the 14th of January, a scouting party reported hav- 
ing discovered "a body of one hundred men to the north of 
our fort in the direction of the Prudhomme Heights," and 
another scout reported having found a Chickasaw canoe on 
the bank of the river in the direction of Prudhomme Heights, 
which is convincing proof that Fort Prudhomme was not at 
the lower Chickasaw Bluffs. 

And so the winter wore away without action, which 
greatly disgusted the Indian allies who were becoming very 
restless at the delay. On the 6th of February Bienville finally 
dispatched Mons. de Celeron with two hundred Frenchmen 
and three hundred Indians to attack the Chickasaw towns, 
but in fact that commander had secret instructions to make 
peace with the Chickasaws. Bienville was reluctantly forced 
to admit to himself that by reason of the disintegration of his 
forces from sickness and desertion he could not hope to success- 
fully overcome the determined Chickasaws, and when on the 
20th of March, Celeron returned with his whole force, after 
having treated with the Chickasaws for peace, bringing with 
him three of their chiefs as envoys, and three Englishmen, who 
came to claim damages for horses which had been killed by the 
savages, Bienville eagerly summoned a council to make peace 
with the Chickasaw commissioners. This was done, the Indians 
agreeing to surrender five Natches refugees whose domicile 
with the Chickasaws was the real beginning of the first war, 
and being the only remnants of that tribe still with them, and 
the French agreeing on their part to appease and withdraw 
their ferocious Indian allies, whose swarming scouting parties 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 41 

had kept the Chickasaw towns in a state of siege for many- 
months and prevented their hunting for game, which had 
caused great distress among them. By the 31st of March all 
of Bienville's troops had departed from the bluff, spitefully 
carrying the three English traders with them as prisoners of 
war, and on April 9, Bienville reached New Orleans with his 
whole force, the sole trophies of his great movement to over- 
whelm the Chickasaws being the five Natchez prisoners and 
the three English captives. The aged Bienville never recov- 
ered from the last crushing failure, and returning to France, 
was coldly received by the French court and spent his remain- 
ing days in quiet retirement after forty-four years of laborious 
work for his colony and king. He finally died in Paris in 1768. 

After this second failure of Bienville to conquer the 
Chickasaws, that virile tribe was left to its freedom again, 
which they employed for the next fourteen years in committing 
depredations along the shores of their great river on the boats 
of traders and other French voyagers from the chain of forts 
on the upper river and its tributaries to the French forts in 
the Natchez district and below. 

The new French governor of Louisiana, Marquis de Vaud- 
reuil, made a final effort to destroy them by an expedition on 
the line of Bienville's old route, the Tombigbee River, in 1754, 
but signally failed as his predecessors had done and the Chick- 
asaws were thenceforward left undisturbed by the French. 
This noted tribe of warlike people had broken lances with and 
foiled DeSoto, fought desperate battles with the Cherokees, 
Creeks, and Choctaws and several French armies and defeated 
all of them. But with the English and after them the Ameri- 
cans, they had always been friendly and because of this fact 
the final settlement of West Tennessee and North Mississippi 
by the Anglo Saxon race was accomplished without a recorded 
massacre or racial tragedy between the settlers and the sav- 
age but proud tribe. 

On November 3, 1762, eight years after De Vaudreuil's 
unsuccessful venture the French king, wearied with the costly 
struggle to maintain colonies in America, by a secret treaty 
ceded without consideration all his colonial possessions on 



42 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

this continent to Spain, which act of cession made the locality 
of Memphis again a part of a Spanish province. But on 
February 16, 1763, a general treaty of peace was made in 
Paris between Great Britain, France and Spain, by which 
France, joined by Spain, ceded to Great Britain all her enorm- 
ous possessions on the east side of the Mississippi River, in- 
cluding both Canada and Louisiana, except the small district 
known as the Island of New Orleans, which went to Spain. 
Besides this, Spain obtained all the vast domain west of the 
Mississippi River except the "Oregon country." 

Thus our district first came under the actual dominion 
of the English crown. Great Britain had indeed claimed this 
territory long before La Salle seized it in behalf of his sover- 
eign, Louis XIV, in 1682. Queen Elizabeth had granted it to 
Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584 and Charles I, had granted it to 
Sir Robert Heath. On March 24, 1663, Charles II constituted 
the whole territory from the Atlantic seaboard to the "South 
Seas," and from the 31° to the 36° of north latitude as a 
province, called Carolina in honor of himself, and granted it 
to Lord Clarendon and others, designated as the "Lords 
Proprietors." By a subsequent grant dated June 30, 1665, 
which refers to the letters patent of March 24, 1663, Charles 
enlarged the grant so as to embrace all the territory "within 
the dominion of America," etc., from north latitude 29° to 
north latitude 36° 30'. This remarkable grant embodied an 
imperial domain, including North and South Carolina, Georgia, 
Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas and 
parts of Florida, Missouri and California.* 

However, North Carolina, later the northern division of 
the province of Carolina, never claimed under this grant any 
further west than the Mississippi River. But the French got 
possession of the west end of the province and held it until 
the treaties of 1762 and 1763 above mentioned. By the treaty 
of 1763 the crown of Great Britain came into its own again 
and the title of the province of North Carolina to its western 
lands beyond the Alleghenies, accrued to it in full under its 

♦Goodspeed, History of Tennessee, 1887, p. 166. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 43 

old grants of 1663 and 1665. By the treaty of 1783 at the 
close of the Revolutionary War, Great Britain ceded this west- 
ern appendage of North Carolina to the United States and 
subsequently the state of North Carolina, by virtue of an act 
of cession passed by the Legislature, December, 1789,t made a 
formal deed of conveyance through its national senators, Sam- 
uel Johnson and Benjamin Hawkins, of this western extension 
of its public lands from its present western boundary to the 
Mississippi River, to the United States. And on April 2, 1790 
Congress accepted the deed and constituted, May 26, 1790, 
of the imperial domain thus acquired, the "Territory South 
of the Ohio River." This territory was finally admitted into 
the Union as the sixteenth State on June 1, 1796. 

But though taken into the bounds of the State of Tennes- 
see, constituted in June, 1796, the site of Memphis on the 
lower Chickasaw Bluff was yet to undergo some vicissitudes 
before it came absolutely under the control of the United 
States. 

Florida had been taken from Great Britain by the Spanish 
admiral, Galvez in 1781, during the Revolutionary War. By 
the treaty of peace between Great Britain, the United States 
and Spain in 17.83, the former had recognized the conquest of 
Florida by Spain and ceded the territory which it had laid 
off as Florida and West Florida to that country. The cession 
of West Florida by Great Britain was made with an indeterm- 
inate northern boundary and Spain consequently claimed the 
land far to the north of the 31° of north latitude, Great 
Britain's original boundary of West Florida. Spain also 
endeavored to control the navigation of the Mississippi River. 
This incensed the western American settlements. Spain 
endeavored to pacify them by advantageous commercial priv- 
ileges on the Mississippi River and sought by intrigue to 
acquire the western portion of the United States as it existed 
at that date and to separate it from the Atlantic States. To 
this end Baron Carondelet, the new Spanish governor of 
Louisiana, 1792, bent his endeavors. But the French, now at 

tThe first Act of Cession was passed by North Carolina at Hilla 
borough, in April, 1784 and repealed October 22, 1784. 



44 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

war with Spain, also endeavored to incite an invasion of 
Louisiana and Florida, by the western frontiersmen and to, 
if possible, separate the western states from the Union and 
form with them an alliance with Louisiana under the protec- 
torate of France. This French movement, engineered by the 
French minister at Washington, Genet, alarmed Spain and 
she began to strengthen her forts on the west side of the 
Mississippi River as high up as New Madrid, Missouri. She 
also entered into a treaty with the Chickasaw Indians and 
obtained permission to establish a fort on the east side of the 
river at the lower Chickasaw Bluff near the mouth of Wolf 
River and the bluff was ceded to Spain by the Chickasaws for 
that purpose, the alleged purpose being to protect Louisiana 
from invasion by the United States. This fort was erected in 
1795 by the then Spanish Governor of Louisiana, Don Manuel 
Gayoso de Lemos, Ramsey says, "Upon the peninsula formed 
by the junction of the Margot (Wolf) River and the Missis- 
sippi" and was called Fort San Fernando de Barancos. Is it 
now definitely known that this redoubt, as well as Fort Adams 
built two years later by Captain Isaac Guion, the first Ameri- 
can commander here, occupied the present site of the Shelby 
County jail, below the mouth of Wolf River. 

This bold act of aggression by Gayoso constituted an 
invasion of the territory of the United States and was not to be 
endured. The American government claimed the whole territory 
on the east side of the Mississippi River down to the 31° of north 
latitude and being also inspired by the urgent appeals of the 
western frontiersmen, at once took steps to secure it. 

General Wilkinson, who had succeeded General Anthony 
Wayne in command of the United States army, wrote this 
letter to Captain Isaac Guion conveying instructions to that 
accomplished officer as to securing the territory of the United 
States bordering on the Mississippi River below the mouth 
of the Ohio. The letter is furnished by Claiborne in his His- 
tory of Mississippi as a Province, Territory and State, page 
178, as follows: 

"Fort Washington, May 20, 1797. 

"It being deemed essential that the troops of the United 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 45 

States should take possession of the certain military posts on 
the Mississippi, within our territorial limits, heretofore held 
l)y the Spanish garrison, I have thought proper to appoint you 
to this very honorable and important service, relying, with en- 
tire confidence on your intrepidity, talents, zeal, patriotism and 
discretion. 

"You are to embark for this place on the 26th instant, 
with such party as may be assigned to you, in charge of your 
ordinance, stores and implements of every kind, and to pro- 
ceed, without halt, to Fort Massac. Arrived there you will 
report to the commanding officer (Captain Z, M. Pike), and 
deliver the orders for him which accompany these instructions. 
These orders are to be promptly executed, and so soon as the 
detachment provided for can be organized and mustered and 
the additional ordinance and stores, to be taken from Massac, 
can be put on board, you will proceed on your voyage. 

"You are to sail under the flag of the United States, 

displayed conspicuously on your barge, and on approaching 

any Spanish post, on the side of Louisiana, you are to give 

seasonable information by a subaltern, of the object of your 

movement and announce your disposition to offer a salute 

provided you are assured it will be returned gun for gun. 

No objection to your further progress can justify you in 

halting, unless it amounts to an official prohibition in writing, 

covering a menace of opposition by force of arms or a shot 

fired into your flotilla or across your bows. 

********* 

"It may, however, be presumed that no impediment will 
be thrown in your way, and that you will proceed without 
interruption to Wolf River, at the head of the lower Chickasaw 
Bluff, where you are to halt and distribute the goods intended 
for the Chickasaws. This being done you are to proceed to 
the Spanish post at the Walnut Hills and if it shall have been 
evacuated you will take possession. Should it be found in 
the occupation of the Spaniards you will demand possession in 
the name of the United States, in conformity with the treaty. ' ' 

The letter then proceeds with explicit instructions to 
Captain Guion as to the necessity of the utmost vigilance and 



46 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

circumspection in his intercourse with and treatment of the 
Spanish military forces and the inhabitants of the country in 
the Natchez district. A few days later Baron Carondelet wrote 
to General Wilkinson in relation to these ominous movements, 
which had been ordered and rumors of which had reached him, 
urging the general to suspend the advance of his troops, 
"whose presence might possibly disturb the tranquility of 
the province and the good understanding that now prevails." 
But the movement of the troops was not withheld. 

Reverting to the occupation of the lower Chicasaw Bluff 
by Governor Gayoso in 1795, Claiborne, the Mississippi histor- 
ian, quotes a letter written by Governor Gayoso to his wife, 
from Fort Ferdinand at the mouth of Wolf River May 31, 
1795, as follows : 

"Yesterday I passed from my post of Esperanza over to 
the Chicacha Bluffs, where I now write. I hoisted the King's 
flag and saluted it in the most brilliant manner from the 
flotilla and the battery. It being St. Ferdinand's day (the 
name of my Prince), I gave the post that name. It was a 
pleasant day, and withal my birthday, and nothing was want- 
ing to complete my happiness but your presence. The chiefs 
are to visit me tomorrow, and then I shall count the days, the 
hours and moments until I can be with you." 

Thus affairs stood at the Chickasaw Bluff, the fort being 
under command of Captain Bellechasse, a Spanish officer, when 
Captain Guion received his instructions to go there and take 
possession of it. Captain Guion proceeded promptly from 
Fort Washington, now Cincinnati, and stopped at Fort Massac 
to take aboard his artillery. When he reached New Madrid 
he was halted by the Spanish commandant, who objected to 
the further progress of his expedition but who finally consented 
to his going as far as Fort Ferdinand at the lower Chickasaw 
Bluff, on Captain Guion 's agreement to proceed no further 
until the matter should be referred to the Spanish officials. 
Captain Guion, having been instructed to be very discreet in 
dealing with the Spaniards on the west bank of the river or, 
as derisively put by the frontiersmen, "do nothing to offend 
the dons," made the best he could of this permission, gave his 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 47 

pledge and proceeded down the river. He reached the lower 
Chickasaw Bluff on July 20, 1797. He there found that Cap- 
tain Bellechasse, the Spanish commandant, had dismantled the 
Spanish fort, Ferdinando de Barancos, and taken position at 
Plopefield, then called Esperanza, on the west bank of the 
river and just above Memphis. It may be further noted here 
that the Spanish troops left Esperanza and floated down the 
river on September 1st following, thus abandoning both their 
eastern and western fortified posts at the Chickasaw Bluffs, 
though they continued to own the territory west of the river. 

Captain Guion found great unrest prevailing among the 
Chickasaw Indians in their territory to the southeast of Mem- 
phis. As part of this early history of Memphis under American 
rule this letter of Captain Guion to General Wilkinson, dated 
August 14, 1797, is quoted from Claiborne's History of Missis- 
sippi : 

"Owing to apprehensions of an attack by the Creeks on 
their town, the Chickasaws did not appear here until the 
tenth instant. Yesterday Piamingo, the mountain leader, 
arrived in bad health. The "Wolf's Friend preceded him two 
days and is here with all his people and a very disorderly, 
turbulent and troublesome clan they are. Great discord 
prevails in this nation, owing probably to the intrigues of the 
Spaniards, and the want of information and energy somewhere 
else. General Colbert, who was here a few days since, with 
about one hundred of his people, manifested a very friendly 
disposition, and gave me permission to remove my troops and 
stores from this bank to the bluff where the Spanish fort 
recently stood and to erect there such works as I thought fit, 
observing that it would be extraordinary to deny to us, who 
were born on the same side of the water, a privilege that had 
been granted to those born on the other side of it. I immedi- 
ately set a party to get pickets for a temporary cover for our 
stores and camp, a very heavy job, for they had to be got a 
mile up the River Margot (Wolf), rafted down and drawn 
up the bluff by hand. I have, however, inclosed a sexangular 
stockade, of which the plan is transmitted. 

"The Wolf's Friend, who has great influence is by no 



48 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

means inclined to the Ujiited States. There is an evident 
coolness between him and the mountain leader. I do not know 
how it will end. I shall use every exertion to reconcile these 
discords. I despair however of effecting anything with the 
former without using a more potent argument than words. A 
few hundred dollars is the best 'talk' for him. 

"On the twelfth Colonel Howard, with five galleys and 
about one hundred Spanish infantry, arrived from above at 
the post of Ilopefield on the opposite bank of the Mississippi. 
They have been very civil and a salute has been received and 
returned. Our troops are daily falling down with intermit- 
tents, the prevailing malady of this country." 

Another letter quoted by Claiborne and further illustrat- 
ing the early relations between the American troops and the 
Chickasaw Indians at the bluffs, is as follows : 

"Fort Adams, Chickasaw Bluffs, Oct. 22, 1797. 

"Contrary to my expectation the Mountain Leader, 
(Piamingo), the King, and the Wolf's Friend, with their 
followers, did not present themselves here to receive their 
goods, until the twelfth instant. Piamingo apprehended an 
incursion by the Creeks and had remained at home to repel 
it. Wolf's Friend, who is a warm partisan of the Spaniards, 
and a cunning, mischievous fellow, regulated his movements 
by their advices and arranged to come in about the time the 
Spanish galleys and troops from St. Louis were to arrive at 
the post of Esperanza, opposite this. A supply of goods from 
New Orleans for the Chickasaws, had for some time been stored 
at Esperanza, but they had delayed the distribution, believing 
that our lot was very inferior to theirs, and that the contrast 
w^ould make its impression, which would be supported by the 
new arrival of soldiers. The Wolf's Friend had assured the 
(commandant at Esperanza that we should not be permitted to 
remain. August 12th, Colonel Charles Howard, with one hun- 
dred men and five galleys, arrived at Esperanza from St. 
Louis. Wolf's Friend immediately crossed over. On his 
return he said he wished to make a talk, and desired that his 
friend Colonel Howard should be present. I appointed the 
16th to give time to have William Colbert and Piamingo 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 49 

present. Colonel Howard with two of his officers came over in 
the morning. He apologised for his visit and said it was only 
to gratify Wolf's Friend, who had insisted upon it, and he 
lioped that when he distributed the presents at Esperanza, I 
would be his guest. This I promptly declined but observed 
that I had no objection to his presence, as I had no secret 
intrigues or policy to carry out with the Indians and should 
merely recommend them to observe order among themselves 
and peaceful relations with both Spaniards and Americans. 
William Colbert, anticipating Wolf's Friend's design, opened 
the conference with a bold and animated talk. Addressing 
himself to that chief he said, 'I know your object is to expel 
the Americans and bring back your friends the Spaniards. 
But this shall not be while I live. The works now being built 
here were begun with my consent. I and my people gave our 
consent and our promise and I would like to see the man or 
the chief who can make that promise void. The Americans 
may go away if they choose to go. I hear you talk of force. 
You will do well to count the warriors of this nation. Before 
you can drive the Americans you must first kill me and my 
warriors and bury us here.' 

"This was followed by a brief but pointed talk from 
Piamingo to the same purpose. Wolf's Friend remained 
moody and silent and his Spanish friends, who had come to 
hear a very different story, were greatly disconcerted. Next 
day our goods were distributed and as they were more liberal 
in quantity and more substantial and valuable than the Span- 
ish distribution, the effect was fine. 

'*I find at this place four white families who came here 
two and three years ago. The man of most consequence is 
Kenneth Ferguson, a Scotchman and agent of Panton, Leslie 
& Company, of Pensacola — very active in the Spanish inter- 
est. He is extensively engaged in the Indian trade and sells 
at most exorbitant rates. Another of these people is William 
Mizell, a native of North Carolina, who was at Pensacola, 
under British protection, when it surrendered to the Spaniards. 
He is no friend to them, and I find him very useful as an 



50 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

interpreter, as he has resided fifteen years among the Chick- 
asaws and speaks their hmguage well." 

When Captain Isaac Guion set out from Fort Adams at 
the Chickasaw Bluff in November, 1797, to go down 
the river and take possession of the Natchez district, he 
left a detachment of artillery under Lieutenant Campbell in 
charge of the fort. The fort was in 1801, removed from its 
site at the present jail to the bluff* near Jackson Mound, by 
order of General Wilkinson on account of the excessive malari- 
al sickness prevailing among the garrison at the mouth of 
Wolf Kiver and a new fort was erected between Jackson 
Mound and the present big Mississippi River bridge, which 
was called Fort Pickering in honor of Honorable Timothy 
Pickering, President Washington's secretary of state. Addi- 
tional troops were sent there, namely, one company of artillery, 
commanded by Captain Pierce and also one company of infan- 
try, commanded by Captain Meriwether Lewis, the lieutenants 
being Steele and Fero. Before this, however, Captain Zebulun 
M. Pike was in command here and about 1800 a fort had been 
erected near the old site of Fort Adams called, in his honor, 
Fort Pike. Captain Sparks of the Third United States regi- 
ment, was in command at Fort Pickering on November 23, 
1801, when that post was visited by Governor W. C. C. Clai- 
borne of the Mississippi Territory at that date, as reported 
by liini to President Madison and in the same letter Governor 
Claiborne recommended the expediency of more military posts 
on the Mississippi River, saying that boats were often stranded 
or sunk or disabled by the illness of their crews and, except at 
Fort Pickering, there were no stations where relief could be 
obtained. The Governor added, "A few posts to render aid 
in such cases, with hospital stores for the sick, would greatly 
promote the commerce and the peopling of this remote terri- 
tory. The humanizing effect on the Indians of such stations 
would soon be felt." He also reported in that letter that 
opposite the lower Cluckasaw Bluff there was a small block- 
house garrisoned by a sergeant and twelve men, meaning the 
Spanish post of Esperanza. 

These excerpts from Claiborne's History of Mississippi 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 51 

illustrate the character of the military post and its appoint- 
ments, maintained at the Chickasaw Bluffs on the Mississippi 
River from their occupation by Captain Guion in 1797, until 
the purchase of West Tennessee from the Chickasaw Indians 
by Governor Isaac Shelby of Kentucky and General Andrew 
Jackson, commissioners on behalf of the United States, on 
October 17, 1818, at which time West Tennessee and the lower 
Chickasaw Bluff were first formally and officially opened to 
settlement by the American pioneer. The brave Chickasaws, 
who were always friendly to the Americans, had seen to it that 
no part of their ancient territory should be appropriated by 
the white man until their own title had been legally extin- 
guished by a purchase negotiated with them by the United 
States. 

In the Navigator, a little book published first in Pittsburg 
in eleven editions from 1801 to 1811, a map of the river at the 
lower Chickasaw Bluff is given and among other things these 
notes : 

"Fort Pike formerly stood just below Wolf River; but a 
better situation was pitched upon and a fort built two miles 
lower down the bluff', called Fork Pickering. It occupies the 
commanding ground of the fourth Chickasaw Bluff on the 
left bank of the Mississippi. The United States have a mili- 
tary factor here, with a few soldiers. The settlement is thin 
and composed of what is called the half breed; that is, a 
mixture of the whites and Indians, a race of men too indolent 
to do any permanent good, either for themselves or society. 
A landing may be had a little above Fort Pickering but it is 
not a very good one." 



CHAPTER III 



Land Grants by the State of Tennessee. John Rice and John 
Ramsey Grants. Purchase of West Tennessee from the 
Chickasaws. Judge John Overton Purchases Rice Grant. 
Takes in with him Andrew Jackson. Sketch of John Rice. 
The Birth of Memphis. Map of New Town. Appearance 
of the Surroundings. Narrative of Colonel James Brown. 
The Name of Memphis. Establishment of Shelby County. 
The First Court of Laws. The First County Tax Levy. 
The First Marriage. 



^v^ ONG preceding these events the State of North Carolina, 
t%f I as we have before seen, claimed this western territory 
^^^ north of the thirty-fifth parallel and embracing the 
present district of West Tennessee, by virtue of its grant 
from the Crown of England, as far as the eastern shore of the 
Mississippi River, and before its cession to the United States of 
its western territory in December, 1789, it had made to various 
people sundry grants in this territory of lands, regardless of 
the unquestionable title of the Chickasaw Indians, who were 
the actual owners of the ground and had never parted with 
their rights. 

So we find that on the 23rd of October, 1783, a tract of 
five thousand acres of land abutting on the Mississippi River 
and embracing the landing at the mouth of Wolf River at the 
lower Chickasaw Bluff was entered by John Rice, a citizen 
of North Carolina, in the land office in Hillsboro, North Caro- 
lina. We further find that this land was surveyed by Isaac 
Roberts, deputy surveyor for the Western District, State of 
North Carolina, on December 1, 1786, by virtue of a land 
warrant from the state entry taker, Number 382, dated the 24th 
day of June, 1784. Upon this entry and survey a ^ant was 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 53 

made by the State of North Carolina, Number 283, on the 25th 
of April, 1789, evidenced by a formal written document signed 
by Sam Johnson, Governor, Captain General and Commander- 
in-Chief, and attested by J. Glasgow, Secretary, which docu- 
ment is Hhe celebrated John Rice grant, the land granted 
embracing a large portion of the site of the present city of 
Memphis. 

On the same day a land warrant, Number 383, was issued 
to John Ramsey, by John Armstrong, entry officer of claims 
for the North Carolina western lands, for five thousand acres, 
entered on the 25th of October, 1783, said five thousand 
acres adjoining on the south for part of its depth the John 
Rice grant, above referred to, but a grant in pursuance of this 
entry was not issued until the 30th of April, 1823. 

As these several grants of lands, made in violation of the 
ownership and title of the Chickasaw Indians who were then 
in possession of the same, constitute the original title or titles 
of the people of the present city of Memphis to all of their lands 
and holdings within such limits, and as there were no conflict- 
ing Spanish or French grants of the same lands, it is deemed 
proper to here give them in full as a part of the history of 
the city. 

The Rice grant is as follows: 

''State of North Carolina, No. 2.83. 
"To all to whom these presents shall come. Greeting: 

"Know ye, that we, for and in consideration of the sum 
of ten pounds for every hundred acres hereby granted, paid 
into our Treasury by John Rice, have given and granted, and 
by these presents do give and grant unto the said John Rice, 
a tract of land containing five thousand acres, lying and being 
in the Western District, lying on the Chickasaw Bluff. Begin- 
ning about one mile below the mouth of Wolf River, at a white 
oak tree, marked J. R., running north twenty degrees east 
two hundred and twenty-six poles; thence due north one hun- 
dred and thirty-three poles; thence north twenty-seven degrees 
west three hundred and ten poles to a cottonwood tree ; thence 
due east one thousand and three hundred and seventy-seven 



54 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

and nine-tenths poles to a mulberry tree ; thence south six 
hundred and twenty-five poles to a stake ; thence west one 
thousand three hundred and four and nine-tenths poles to 
the beginning, as by the plat herewith annexed doth appear, 
together with all woods, waters, mines, minerals, hereditaments 
and appurtenances to the said land belonging or appertaining ; 
To hold to the said John Rice, his heirs and assigns forever — 
yielding and paying to us such sums of money yearly, or 
otherwise as our General Assembly from time to time shall 
cause. This grant to be registered in the Register's office of 
our said Western District within twelve months from the date 
hereof; otherwise the same shall be void and of no effect. 

"In testimony whereof we have caused these our letters to 
be made patent and our Great Seal to be hereunto affixed. 
Witness Samuel Johnson, Esquire, our Governor, Captain Gen- 
eral and Commander-in-Chief, at Halifax, the twenty-fifth day 
of April, in the XIII year of our Independence, and of Our 
Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine. 

By his Excellency's command, 
J. Glascow, Secretary. Sam Johnson." 

This grant was based upon an entry and survey made in 
1786, as folloAvs : 

"State of North Carolina, 
Western District. 

"By virtue of a warrant from the State Entry Taker, 
Number 382, dated the twenty-fourth day of June, one thous- 
and seven hundred and eighty four, I have surveyed for John 
Rice five thousand acres of land, lying on the Chickasaw 
Bluff; beginning about one mile below the mouth of Wolf 
River, at a white oak tree, marked J. R., running north 
twenty degrees east, two hundred and twenty-six poles; 
thence due north one hundred and thirty-three poles; 
thence north twenty-seven degrees west, three hundred and 
ten poles to a cottonwood tree ; thence due east one thousand 
three hundred and seventy-seven and nine-tenths poles to a 
mulberry tree ; thence south six hundred and twenty-five poles 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 55 

to a stake; thence west one thousand three hundred and four 
and nine-tenths poles to the beginning. 
"Surveyed December 1st, 1786. 

Isaac Roberts, D. S. 
John Scott, I Q, fi p }} 

Thomas Jamison, ] 

"Orange County, Register's Office, 

August 14th, 1789. 
"The within grant is registered in Book M, Folio 117. 

By John Allison, P. R. 
"State of Tennessee, Shelby County, 

Register's Office, 14th May, 1820. 
"The foregoing grant is duly registered in my office this 
5th May, 1820. Thos. Taylor, R. S. C." 

The John Ramsey grant, Number 19,060, for that part of 
the city lying south and adjoining the Rice grant for part of 
its length is as follows: 
"The State of Tennessee: 

"To all to whom these presents shall come. Greeting: 
"Know ye, that in consideration of Warrant No. 383, dated 
the 24th day of June, 1784, issued by John Armstrong, Entry 
Officer of Claims for the North Carolina Western lands, to 
John Ramsey, for five thousand acres, and entered on the 25th 
day of October, 1783, by Number 383, there is granted by the 
said State of Tennessee, unto the said John Ramsey and John 
Overton, assignee, etc., a certain tract or parcel of land, con- 
taining five thousand acres by survey, bearing date the first 
day of March, 1822, lying in Shelby County, eleventh district, 
ranges eight and nine, sections one and two, on the Mississippi 
River, of which to said Ramsey four thousand two hundred and 
eighty-five and five-seventh acres, and to said Overton seven 
hundred and fourteen and two-sevenths acres, and bounded as 
follows, to-wit: Beginning at a stake on the bank of said 
river — the southwest corner of John Rice's five thousand acre 
grant, as processioned by William Lawrence in the year 1820 
— running thence south eighty-five degrees east, with said 
Rice's south boundary line, as processioned aforesaid, one 
hundred and seventy-five chains to a poplar marked R ; thence 



56 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

south two hundred chains to an elm marked F. R. ; thence 
west, at sixty-two chains, crossing a branch bearing south, at 
seventy chains crossing a branch bearing southeast, at one hun- 
dred and nineteen chains, crossing a branch bearing south, 
and at one hundred and sixty chains a branch bearing south 
— in all two hundred and seventy-three chains to a cottonwood 
marked F. R. on the banks of the Mississippi River; thence up 
the margin of said river, with its meanders, north seven degrees 
east eleven chains, etc., etc. (Here follows the magnetic bear- 
ings of the east bank of the Mississippi River), to the beginn- 
ing ; with the hereditaments and appurtenances appertaining. 

"To have and to hold the said tract or parcel of land, 
with its appurtenances, to the said John Ramsey and John 
Overton and their heirs forever. 

"In witness whereof, William Carroll, Governor of the 
State of Tennessee, has hereunto set his hand and caused the 
great seal of the State to be affixed, at Murfreesboro, on the 
SOth day of April, in the year of Our Lord, 1823, and of the 
Independence of the United States the forty-seventh. By the 
Governor. William Cafroll. 

Daniel Graham, Secretary. 

"I, Alexander Kocsis, Register of the land office, for the 
District of Middle Tennessee, do hereby certify that the fore- 
going is a true copy of Grant No. 19,060, of the State of Ten- 
nessee, to John Ramsey and John Overton, as the same stands 
recorded in my office, in Book V, page 415. Given under my 
hand, at office, this 15th day of June, 1867. Alexander Kocsis, 
By A. Gattinger, Deputy. Register Land Office." 

State of Tennessee, Shelby County." 

"The foregoing instrument, with Clerk's certificate, was 
filed in my office for registration on the 6th day of March, 
1872, at 10:40 o'clock a. m., and noted in Note Book No. 7, 
page 120, and was recorded on the 7th day of March, 1872. 

John Brown, Register. 
By J. C. Buster, Deputy Register." 

The area covered by the territory south of the Rice grant 
and lying between Bellevue Boulevard, the east line of the 
Ramsey grant, Trezevant Avenue on the east and the present 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 57 

city limits on the south, was made up of several small grants 
to the following people, to-wit : Anderson B. Carr, Thomas 
Hickman and Nicholas Long. 

It will be observed that both the Rice and Ramsey grants 
were conveyances by the State of North Carolina of all the 
rights which it claimed or possessed under the old grant from 
the Crown of England, in 1762, of all territory west of its then 
western limits to the "South Seas," which were supposed to 
lie far to the west of the Mississippi River. But these lands, 
insofar as West Tennessee is concerned, were at that time the 
private property of an unconquered and unconquerable Indian 
race, the Chickasaws, which were then friendly towards the 
United States, and North Carolina had no legal right to grant 
away their territory, either to John Rice, John Ramsey or the 
United States of America, which she had actually done as we 
have before seen at about the same period of time. The United 
States, however recognized this valid title of her Indian 
friends, the Chickasaws, and appointed a commission to nego- 
tiate with the Indians for the sale of all their lands lying 
between the Tennessee, Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and north 
of the thirty-fifth parallel of latitude, which commission nego- 
tiated with the Chickasaw Indians at their treaty grounds two 
or three miles west of Tupelo, Mississippi, October 19, 1818, a 
sale and cession of all these lands to the United States for a 
consideration of $300,000, to be paid in fifteen annual install- 
ments of $20,000 each. Besides this gross sum the Indians, 
with cunning craft, insisted on and secured from the commis- 
sioners certain additional sums which, under their untutored 
process of reasoning, were due them, growing out of the follow- 
ing train of incidents, viz : Debt of Chief (General) William 
Colbert to Captain John Gordon, $1,115 ; debt due Captain 
David Smith for supplies furnished to himself and soldiers wiio 
had helped the Chickasaws in a war with the Creeks ; due 
Oppassantubbee for a tract of land reserved for him under the 
treaty of 1816, $500; due Captain John Lewis for saddle lost 
in the service, $25 ; due Chief John Colbert for sum stolen from 
him in theatre in Baltimore, $1,089. There were also certain 
reservations to various members of the tribes and annuities 



58 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

to the chiefs. They also overreached the commissions in trad- 
ing about the last or 15th annuity of $20,000. Colbert begged 
for another "cent" when the fourteenth annuity had been 
agreed upon which Jackson, much puzzled, granted. The 
Indians then claimed that that agreement meant another 
$20,000 annuity. Governor Shelby became angry and refused 
and the treaty came near failing. But Jackson, by giving his 
personal bond for the $20,000, if Congress failed to provide for 
it, appeased the angry governor and the treaty was signed. 

The commissioners on the part of the United States were 
General Andrew Jackson, later one of the proprietors and 
founders of Memphis, and later still President of the United 
States, and Governor Isaac Shelby, of Kentucky, one of the 
heroes of the decisive Battle of King's Mountain, North Caro- 
lina, the turning point in the American Revolution. Having 
previously, in 1796, admitted the State of Tennessee to the 
American Union and designated its western boundary as the 
Mississippi River, and its limits as embodying all the lands thus 
purchased from the Chickasaws, the United States made no 
claim of proprietorship in these lands except in a national 
sense, and left Tennessee to deal with the question of original 
title as between itself and the early settlers. Tennessee never 
questioned the grants of North Carolina to Rice, Ramsey, Hick- 
man, Carr, Long and numerous others in the ceded territory 
made before the Indian titles were extinguished and the land 
ceded to the United States by the Chickasaws and those five 
first named grants to John Rice, John Ramsey, Thomas Hick- 
man, A. B. Carr and N. Long, are today and have always been 
recognized as the original and legal muniments of title to all 
lands on which Memphis is now situated, the title of the 
Chickasaws merging in the title derived from the State of 
North Carolina.* 

John Rice, the grantee of the first grant above named, 
never lived to realize the value of the splendid domain which 

*The State of North Carolina, however, in her deed of cession of 
the territory now covered by the State of Tennessee, to the United 
States, reserved to her grantees the title to all lands theretofore 
granted by her to sundry individuals in the ceded territory. This 
deed of cession was made in December, 1789. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 59 

he had obtained from the State of North Carolina. He migrated 
from North Carolina to Nashville soon after obtaining his grant 
of this and other large bodies of land in Middle and West 
Tennessee and later engaged in large commercial enterprises, 
according to the standards of that day, and was killed by the 
Indians in 1791 while transporting his goods up the Cumber- 
land River, at a point about where the city of Clarksville now 
stands. He had left a will devising to his brother, Elisha Rice, 
his grant of five thousand acres on the Chickasaw Bluff, and 
this grant was in 1794 conveyed by Elisha Rice to Judge 
Overton for a consideration of $500.00, though his brother 
John had originally paid to the State of North Carolina ten 
pounds for every one hundred acres of the grant, a sum 
amounting in all to five hundred pounds sterling or about 
twenty-five hundred dollars. Judge Overton made certain his 
title by also obtaining conveyances from the other three sur- 
viving brothers of John Rice, who were the remaining heirs 
of his estate. The day following the purchase of this land 
Judge Overton conveyed an undivided one-half interest in the 
Rice grant to his warm friend and almost lifelong companion. 
General Andrew Jackson. 

John Rice with great sagacity had located his grant so as 
to embrace the mouth of Wolf River and the then only avail- 
able landing on the Mississippi River, although the lands were 
rough and broken to a considerable extent at and near the 
Mississippi River front on that part of the lower Chickasaw 
Bluffs, although he might, if he had chosen, have entered the 
lands embraced in the Ramsey grant next adjoining him a 
little lower down and obtained much smoother and more 
elevated property. But as he foresaw the development at that 
early period must begin where the landing facilities were 
greatest and this actually followed, as every student of the 
history of Memphis now knows. 

Immediately upon the extinguishment of the Chickasaw 
title to West Tennessee lands in 1818, immigration began to 
flow towards the Mississippi River, the hardy pioneers by hun- 
dreds seeking homes in that nature favored territory. Among 
the first to come was Judge John Overton and soon after, 



60 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

General Jackson. The latter had disposed of portions of his 
half interest, William Winchester obtaining one-fourth and 
General James Winchester one-half, a half of which he held 
in trust for the heirs of a deceased brother, and General Jack- 
son retained one-fourth. Judge Overton and his colleagues, 
General Winchester and General Jackson, immediately became 
very active and proceeded to lay off a town on the river front 
section of the Rice grant as soon as the correct lines of the 
grant could be ascertained. There was some difficulty in 
determining the actual bounds of this land which was 
described as beginning "about one mile below the mouth of 
Wolf River at a white oak tree marked J. R.," but after numer- 
ous measurements and surveys, by reason of the fact that the 
mouth of Wolf River was a shifting point from time to time, 
owing to the alternate encroachments and recession of the low 
water line of the Mississippi River in the alluvial lands under 
the upper end of the Chickasaw Bluffs, it was finally deter- 
mined about May, 1819, to locate the town first from Auction 
Street on the north to the present north line of Union Avenue 
on the south and from Front Street on the west to the alley 
east of Second Street on the east. This plan of the new town 
was wrought into shape by William Lawrence, the surveyor, 
and a map prepared of the town, subsequently to the first 
draft of which an extension was made of the territory from 
Auction Street northward to Bayou Gayoso, which new terri- 
tory was likewise divided into lots and streets. A copy of this 
map is here published, showing the exact location and plan of 
the town of Memphis and its extension, and showing its streets, 
alleys, squares and blocks, its splendid system of parks or 
public squares and grand promenade on the river front and 
the then relative positions of the mouth of Wolf River, the 
course and curves of Bayou Gayoso near its mouth, and the 
outline of the bluff, which then overhung the water-line of the 
river from a point near the foot of Jackson Street southward. 
The partition of the lands which the proprietors of Mem- 
phis then held as tenants in common, which took place in 1829, 
and the ratification of the dedication to public use forever of 







E 




n 





] 

3D 



\'\' i - 



D 






D 
D 



Pli 



^na'DD"" 



DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD 

rnrn rnrn r~irn 



MAP OF MEMPHIS IN 1827. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 61 

the squares and promenade will be treated further along in 
this narrative. 

Colonel James Brown, an early loeater and surveyor of 
lands in the western district of Tennessee, thus tells of some 
of the important events which immediately followed the lay- 
ing out of the town of Memphis in the early part of the year 
1819. lie says: 

"Judge John Overton, of Nashville, Tennessee, one of the 
proprietors of the new town of Memphis, was here with his 
plan of the upper part of Memphis, (now Pinch), and on 
several days had offered some of his lots for sale; very few 
were sold and they for small prices, I rather think from 
thirty and forty dollars to one hundred dollars would cover 
the range of prices. I was well acquainted with the Judge 
(grandfather to our present State Senator), and well recollect 
his estimate of the ultimate value of the location as a town, 
saying that it would some day be the greatest city in the 
United States, and rival the ancient city of Memphis on the 
River Nile, for which it was named. 

"Judge Overton did not seem to be discouraged at the 
low prices and short sales, and only offered the lots for sale 
to afford all wlio might be disposed to invest, an opportunity 
to do so. He said that he knew it took many people to make 
a large town and the country contiguous must be settled before 
it could grow much. 

"He was quite liberal in donating lots to nearly all of the 
old settlers. To T. D. Carr he gave two lots whereon to build 
a tavern for the accommodation of the persons attending the 
land office. It consisted of six or eight one-story round-pole 
cabins, very low, and floored with old boat plank, the cracks 
daubed with clay, after the manner of Indian huts. To A. B. 
Carr he gave one lot for the location of a horse-mill and one 
lot out on Bayou Gayoso for a tan-yard site. ' ' 

To this excerpt taken from the June number, 1875, of 
The Old Folks Record, a historical mazagine then published in 
Memphis, will be added other quotations from the same narra- 
tive and reminiscences of Memphis and "West Tennessee, by 
Colonel James Brown, the pioneer surveyor of this locality, 



62 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

which describes with extreme vividness the condition of affairs 
existing at the lower Chickasaw Bluffs during the year 1819, 
in May of which year the original town of Memphis was first 
laid off, as before stated. 

Colonel Brown says, in his extremely interesting narrative : 
"On the 19th of October, 1818, Isaac Shelby and Andrew 
Jackson, as commissioners on the part of the United States, 
made a treaty with the Chickasaw Indians for all that part of 
their territory north of the southern line of the State of Ten- 
nessee, beginning on the 35th parallel of north latitude, where 
the same crosses the Tennessee River; thence west with said 
line to where the same strikes the Mississippi River at or near 
the Chickasaw Bluffs; thence up the Mississippi River to the 
mouth of the Ohio ; thence up the Ohio to the mouth of the 
Tennessee River; thence up the Tennessee to the beginning. 
This treaty was forwarded to "Washington City for the con- 
sideration of the Executive of the United States, and was 
approved by the President, James Monroe, and proclaimed as 
such on the 7th of January, 1819. At this time I was associated 
with my uncle, Joseph B. Porter, and his son, J. T. Porter, 
for the purpose of locating land warrants and establishing 
North Carolina grants surveyed some thirty years previous. 
As soon as the news reached us, (then residing in Maury 
County, Tennessee), we set out for the newly acquired terri- 
tory. 

"The southern boundary of Tennessee not having been as 
yet extended any further west than the Tennessee River, we 
began at that point, it being the northwest corner of the State 
of Alabama previously established and the lands in Alabama 
had been in market. Here we ascertained the variation of 
the dividing line between Tennessee and Alabama, as accu- 
rately as we could, and extended the same westwardly to the 
Mississippi River, striking nearly opposite the lower end of 
President's Island, about four miles south of old Fort Picker- 
ing, arriving there, part of us on the sixth and part on the 
seventh of March, 1819. This line was run for our own infor- 
mation and not as an established line, but some time in the 
summer following the official line was run by General James 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 63 

Winchester as commissioner of the United States, with whom 
James Blakemore, I believe, was the surveyor. 

"At this time there were but three white men residing in 
this part of the purchase, Thomas D. Carr, A. B. Carr and a 
hired man named Overton, excepting those who were con- 
nected with the Indians, Tom Fletcher (who was raised in the 
Nation), Pat Meagher and his family, Joab Bean, a black- 
smith and resident gunsmith, to repair the guns for the Indian 
hunters. No roads led to or from the Chickasaw Bluffs, as 
it was then called; only an Indian path or trail, called the 
Cherokee trace, leading from Tuscumbia, over which the Cher- 
okees emigrated west of the IMississippi River a few years 
previous by the use of pack-horses entirely; also an Indian 
trail leading out southeastwardly to the Indian towns on what 
is now called the Pontotoc Ridge and formerly the Chickasaw 
agency. 

''This entire country and part of North Mississippi was 
never occupied by the Indians as residents, but only as hunt- 
ing grounds. The town of Memphis was laid out about the 
month of May, 1819. 

''In Book A, of the Records of Shelby County, page 133, 
Andrew Jackson, John Overton and James Winchester con- 
veyed to trustees the five thousand acre tract originally entered 
in the name of John Rice, including the mouth of Wolf River, 
on a part of which they designed to lay off a town, south of 
Wolf River and within one mile of the Mississippi River. In 
the same book, page 201, is recorded a deed from Memphis 
proprietors to B. Fooy for Lot Number 53, in accordance with 
title bond dated the 22nd of May, 1819, for lot Number 53, in 
the town called Memphis. 

"From the records referred to, it is evident that the town 
of Memphis was established, surveyed and named about May, 
1819, and as shown in the last number of your record, the 
county was organized first of May, 1820; at which time I 
doubt whether there was twenty actual settlers in the county, 
or within any other settlement within seventy-five miles. I 
did not know of any nearer than the middle fork of the Forked 
Deer River, some ten miles northeast of where Jackson is now, 



64 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

there was one or two settlers that raised corn during that year, 
1819. The Messrs. Carrs had arrived at this place but two or 
three weeks previous to our arrival. They were traveling in 
a small boat from Virginia to Louisiana and on the way heard 
that the Chickasaws were negotiating for the sale of their 
country. They stopped here to settle, if it was true, and our 
arrival gave them the first reliable intelligence of that fact, 
which was soon affirmed by the arrival of other parties on 
the same business that we were. Among them that I now 
recollect was Gideon Pillow, (father of our General G. J. 
Pillow), William Bradshaw, J. C. McLemore, James Vaulx, 
R. Hightower and sons. 

"At this time, March, 1819, the Mississippi River current 
set very strong into the then mouth of Wolf, which was some 
one hundred yards north and about the same distance west 
from the northern termination of the high ground, with a 
narrow bench of low bottom extending down the river some 
150 to 200 yards to where the current struck the bluff. The 
bank all along there was giving way rapidly and soon all 
disappeared to the bluff but in a short period the current 
slackened about the mouth of Wolf and struck the bluff lower 
down and a sandbar formed along the upper part of the bluff 
and mouth of Wolf, and in the course of fifteen to twenty 
years formed the bar now called the Batture and Navy Yard, 
and thereby throwing the mouth of Wolf over a quarter of a 
mile into what fifty years ago was the main channel of the 
Mississippi River. The landing at the mouth of Wolf was 
very difficult for flatboats, owing to the strong current but the 
landing at, or a little above Fort Pickering was very good, 
having a gentle, smooth current passing along the bank with- 
out caving. 

"The descent from the top of the bluff was down a 
gentle sloping hollow. The old fort, or rather blockhouse, was 
still standing. The road from Fort Pickering to the mouth of 
Wolf was a narrow path along the top of the bluff, through a 
dense forest of timber and cane, some places very thick and 
others thin cane; in one place, perhaps half way between the 
points, there had been a recent slide or caving in of the bluff. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 65 

taking off the road for some hundred yards or more, and 
perhaps two or three acres of land." 

And thus it was that twenty-nine years after North Caro- 
lina ceded her claim to the United States and Tennessee was 
made a territory, and twenty-three years after she was admitted 
to the Union as the State of Tennessee, Memphis was laid out. 

Several names had been suggested for the new town: 
"Jackson," for General Andrew Jackson, one of her founders; 
"Chickasaw," which was thought by some to be the most 
appropriate name for this site and "Memphis," on account of 
her situation on the river being so similar to that of old 
Memphis in Egypt, on the Nile. The last was chosen by "Old 
Hickory" himself, it is said, who claimed for the new tow^n 
such future greatness as the past greatness of the other Mem- 
phis. This controversy over names took place in 1819, when 
the city was laid out, but Memphis was not finally decided 
upon until May, 1819, the meaning of the name pleasing the 
founders and really gaining the choice more than the signifi- 
cation of her situation. This meaning, variously interpreted, 
is "The Good Place," "Good Abode," or "The Abode of the 
Good One." 

It seems that the first joint conception of a town on the 
lower Chickasaw bluffs took place in January of the year 1819 
and was embodied in the instrument referred to by Colonel 
James Brown, in the excerpt quoted above, as recorded in 
Book A, page 133 of our Shelby County records. The clause 
in question is as follows: "Andrew Jackson, John Overton 
and James Winchester agreed on the sixth of January, 1819, 
the same being filed for record on January 1, 1823, probate 
being in person by Jackson in open circuit court, Davidson 
County, Tennessee and by Overton and Winchester in open 
circuit court Williamson County, Tennessee, relative to laying 
out a town on that part of premises described in Number 1 
herein, lying south of Wolf River and within one mile of the 
Mississippi River, provided, that in case of the death of one 
or two of the parties hereto, the survivors shall have full 
power to lay off and dispose of lots in said town, and that no 



66 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

future transfer of interest in said plan shall affect the terms in 
this agreement which is to remain in force for ten years." 

Just at the time that the town of Memphis was laid off 
and received its name, ignoring the wretched group of aborig- 
inal huts and Indian traders who swapped blankets, beads 
and tobacco and whiskey for pelts with the Chickasaw Indian 
hunters at the old landing by the mouth of Wolf River, the 
Legislature thought it wise and progressive to establish a 
county extending eastward from the Chickasaw Bluff so that 
the state would not be hampered in its administration of the 
new and promising territory. It is not so historically stated but 
there is little question that the far-seeing mind of Judge John 
Overton of Nashville, suggested this legislation. On November 
24, 1819, the General Assembly of Tennessee passed an act 
establishing a new county on the Mississippi River, to be called 
Shelby County in honor of the great Kentucky governor and 
Revolutionary soldier, Isaac Shelby who, together with General 
Andrew Jackson, and on the 19th of October of the preceding 
year negotiated with the Indians the purchase by the United 
States of what is now West Tennessee and Western Kentucky. 

And so, just one year after the plans of the future city 
were drawn and the lots staked off on the bluff. Honorable 
Jacob Tipton, as commissioner of the State of Tennessee, 
appeared May 1, 1820 at the site of the new town, produced 
his commission and caused proclamation to be made for the 
organization of a court of pleas and quarter sessions for the 
County of Shelby and then proceeded to the qualification of 
Anderson B. Carr, Marcus B. Winchester, William Irvine, 
Thomas D. Carter and Benjamin Willis as justices of the peace, 
administered the oath of office to them as such justices, and 
then made proclamation of the opening of the court. The 
above named gentlemen, together with Jacob Tipton, ex-officio 
member, at once elected William Irvine as chairman, John Read, 
clerk pro tern and Major Thomas Taylor, sheriff. 

These gentlemen having qualified and entered upon their 
duties on the same day, the County of Shelby was born. The 
court at once proceded to business, the first item being to 
authenticate a deed of conveyance from William Thompson to 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 67 

Anderson B. Carr. The next day the court proceeded to the 
appointment of permanent officers for the county and qualified 
William Lawrence as clerk ; Samuel R. Brown, sheriff ; Thomas 
Taylor, register; Alex. Ferguson, ranger; William A. Davis, 
trustee ; Gideon Carr, coroner ; William Bettis and William 
Dean, constables; and John P. Perkins, solicitor. 

A few other items of their legislative work will be referred 
to. On the 3rd of May, John Montgomery and John P. 
Perkins were admitted to practice in the court, and were thus 
the first recognized lawyers in West Tennessee. Joseph James 
was the first man licensed to keep an ordinary or house of 
entertainment in the country and William Irvine was author- 
ized to keep a public ferry at the river landing, known as 
Irvine's, being forced to give bonds for keeping the river 
banks in proper order and providing suitable boats, and thus 
Mr. Irvine was likewise the first wharf-master. The rates of 
board and lodging at the public houses for man and beast 
was fixed by law, by the order of the court, and the tax-levy 
for the year 1820 was laid as follows : 

On each 100 acres of land $ .18% 

On each town lot 371/2 

On each white poll 121/2 

On each black poll 25 

On each wholesale and retail store, peddler and hawker 5.00 

This levy was made August 3, 1820 and on the same day 
the court tried its first prisoner under indictment, Patrick 
Meagher, for retailing spirits, who pleaded guilty and was 
fined one dollar and costs. 

The court then turned its attention to the question of a 
courthouse for holding its august sessions and ordered that 
T. D. Carr, Esquire, be authorized and empowered to contract 
with some workman "to build and erect a temporary log 
courthouse, jury-room and jail on Market Square in the town 
of Memphis, and hereby appropriate one hundred and seventy- 
five dollars for erecting and building the same." 

As compared with our modern million and a half dollar 
courthouse, this structure was indeed primitive, but the laws 
seem to have been enforced inside those log walls with a 



68 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

vigor and determination that forms a model for all time to 
come. 

Mr. James D. Davis, in his Old Times Sketches, says that 
the first court was held at a log house on the north side of 
Winchester Street in the rear of the brick building which now 
stands at the northeast corner of Main and Winchester Streets, 
but it being questioned as to whether a court should be held 
elsewhere than in Court Square, the $175.00 building was built 
in that square, where it remained for many years and was 
used for a long time as a school-house. But the records of the 
court show that on February 5, 1821, the court met at the 
house of William Lawrence and that on May 7, 1821, the court 
met in the courthouse in the town of Memphis ; also that on 
May 9, the order for building the courthouse, jury-room and 
jail was rescinded and $125.00 was appropriated for building 
a jail. Where the courthouse was first actually erected, the 
record does not show, but the court did provide on November 
7, 1821, the prison bounds as "beginning and running so as to 
include the public square on which the courthouse now stands." 

On May 1, 1820, the first authorized marriage in Memphis 
was celebrated, the contracting parties Overton W. Carr and 
Mary Hill, the marriage rites being performed by Jacob 
Tipton, Justice of the Peace. 

The Chickasaw Bluffs were now occupied by a town in 
name at least, which was also the county seat of the County 
of Shelby, and all they seemed to lack was a sufficient popu- 
lation to make good their claims. In 1825 the town of Mem- 
phis is alleged to have shown a census return of 308, but this 
included of course, both the Indian and Negro population, the 
former being more or less transient and occupying the blufi's 
from time to time on trading expeditions, in which they 
camped in the usual style in the vicinity of the landing near 
the mouth of Wolf River. There were some Indian residents 
and some of these had sold their huts or shacks to enterprising 
immigrants, who did not otherwise possess the means of build- 
ing themselves homes. This species of squatter sovereignty, 
tliough the titles of the purchases were undoubtedly legal, 
caused some trouble between the proprietors of Memphis and 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 69 

the holders of these lots or patches of ground, as they occupied 
in many instances more or less of the city lots, as designated 
on the new map of Memphis. 

It will be remembered that John Rice received his grant 
and sold his tract to Judge John Overton while the lands on 
the Chickasaw Bluffs were still held by the aboriginal inhabi- 
tants who had up to that time never parted with their titles 
and when, in 1818, these Indians ceded their territory in West 
Tennessee to the United States Government the grantee of 
course obtained the only actual and legal title to the land. 
The United States made no grants or conveyances of these 
lands and the Indian residents, who had not abandoned their 
lands under this cession to the United States, but retained 
and occupied their tenures, beyond question had a better title 
to the ground than did John Rice, whose grant was from the 
State of North Carolina, before the Indians had parted with 
their titles, not to North Carolina, but to the United States, 
and neither John Rice nor his grantees had ever got possession 
of the ground so occupied by the Indians. But the matter was 
ultimately settled by the conveyance of certain of the town 
lots by the proprietors to the claimants. 



CHAPTER IV 



Incorporation of Memphis. Resentment of the Inhabitants. 
Sketch of First Charter. First Board of Mayor and Alder- 
men. Limits of the Corporation Fixed. Outline of First 
Tax-Levy. Second Board of Aldermen. Memphis Made a 
City. Isaac Rawlings Mayor. City Divided into Wards. 
Fire Department Established. Citizens Oust the Gamblers. 
Young Memphis a Free Soil Town. Removal of the Indians 
to the West. Rivalry Between Memphis and Randolph. 
Mississippi Claims Site of Memphis. Tax Assessment of 
1840. War With the Flatboatmen. Memphis Gets the 
Great Navy Yard. The City Limits Extended. "South 
Memphis" and "Pinch." Incorporation of South Mem- 
phis. The First Telegraph Line. Troubles Over Slavery. 
The Wolf River Canal Project. The First Bond Issue. 
The Charters of 1848 and 1849. 



^^^ HE Legislature of Tennessee passed an Act December 
l|L 9, 1826, incorporating the town of Memphis. As only 
^"^ a few of the inhabitants, — chietiy the younger and more 
progressive men, — had been consulted with regard to this 
incorporation as a town, the new charter came as a surprise to 
most of the people. In consequence it met with considerable 
resentment from some of the unconsulted and offended mem- 
bers of the small community. Among these indignant men 
was Isaac Rawlings, one of the most influential men of the 
locality, but one of the old-time sort, ever suspicious of inno- 
vations of any kind that might disturb the ease of people prone 
to remain in a rut. But often excellent people remain in 
narrow pathways because there is no incentive to turn them 
aside, but when persuaded to leave the old trail, they find 
new and better ways and learn that they can add to their 
own comfort and profit by branching out, as well as to their 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 71 

usefulness to others. So it later proved with this worthy old 
pioneer, Mr. Isaac Rawlings. 

A public meeting was called and speeches were made for 
and against the new corporation. Isaac Rawlings was made 
chairman of this meeting and he made a speech against the 
new act, denouncing it as "a trick of the proprietors." He 
held that the small community could not support a city gov- 
ernment; that it must grow in population and wealth before 
such an act should be considered. He said that it would be 
an advantage only to the proprietors and well-to-do class, 
while the poor on the outskirts of the proposed town would 
suffer hardships thereby. Speakers on the other side put for- 
ward the advantages of a corporation and offered to leave out 
the poor "on the outskirts" to satisfy Mr. Rawlings and his 
partisans. 

One of the strongest supporters of the new charter was 
Marcus B. Winchester, a young man of education, refinement 
and progressive spirit. His energetic methods of doing business 
and pushing affairs had disturbed Rawlings and his followers 
from the advent of that young gentleman to the "Bluff," but 
as time progressed and the city enlarged, becoming more and 
more important and flourishing under the new charter, Mr. 
Rawlings saw the benefits and was big enough to acknowledge 
it, though he harbored a feeling of resentment and jealousy 
toward Marcus Winchester for a long time. 

0. F. Vedder gives the substance of the first charter of 
Memphis, as follows : 

Section 1, incorporated the town and conferred upon it 
its name, but fixed no boundaries. Section 2, gave the town 
authorities power to pass all kinds of needful legislation for 
the government of and preservation of the health of the town. 
Section 3, required the sheriff of the county to hold an election 
on the first Saturday of March, 1827, and on the same day in 
every subsequent year, for members of the board of aldermen, 
at which election any person holding a freehold in the town, 
who was entitled to vote for members of the general assembly 
should be qualified to vote for mayor and aldermen. Section 
4, read: "That the seven persons having the highest number 



72 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

of votes at any election shall be taken to be elected, and the 
sheriff of said county shall within two days thereafter, and 
a majority being present, proceed to elect a mayor from their 
own body for said corporation for the time the aldermen were 
elected." 

On account of the delay of the charter the election of 1827 
did not take place until April 26, instead of the first of March 
as specified in the charter. This election was held at the old 
courthouse and the first board of aldermen elected for the city 
of Memphis were : M. B. Winchester, Joseph L. Davis, John 
Hooke, N. B. Atwood, George F. Graham, John R. Dougherty 
and William D. Neely. This board held its first meeting May 9, 
1827 and they elected for the first mayor of the infant city, 
Marcus B. Winchester, who had been so largely instrumental 
in having it made a town. His administration confirmed all 
that his former conduct toward the little town had bespoke, 
that he was one of her best friends and most earnest workers. 

At this first meeting of the board the certificate of election 
was presented, signed by Nathan Anderson, Isaac Rawlings, 
A. Rapel and S. F. Brown, sheriff. 

The first resolution passed was to the effect that it was 
important to the interest of Memphis that ordinances be 
adopted for the government of the town. An election was 
announced for May 12, when the treasurer, recorder and town 
constable should be elected. At the appointed time the election 
took place, when Isaac Rawlings was elected treasurer, Jacob 
L. Davis, recorder, and John J. Balch, constable. 

Another meeting of the board was held May 30, at which 
time the question came up of the legality of their organization. 
The charter had set the first Saturday in March for the election 
and it had not taken place until April the 26th. The matter 
was exhaustively discussed and finally dismissed, with these 
reasons or pleas : ' ' That the charter did not reach Memphis 
until after the first Saturday of March; that it was evidently 
the intention of the Legislature that the corporation should 
be organized during the current year ; that the judges held 
the election legal, and the sheriff had so certified ; hence, it was 
declared proper on the part of the board that they consider 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 73 

themselves a legal body, and proceed to pass the ordinances 
needed by the new town."* 

There is no record nor tradition that this action of the 
board was ever disputed. 

The first ordinance passed was for the classification of 
property into taxable and non-taxable possessions. Those 
liable to taxation were classed thus: "All town lots; all free 
males between the ages of twenty-one and fifty; all slaves 
between the ages of twelve and fifty, wholesale and retail stores, 
including medicine stores, peddlers and hawkers ; members of 
the learned professions, who practice the same for profit; tav- 
ern keepers ; retailers of spirits ; stud horses and jacks. Taxes 
were levied in the following proportions : Improved lots with 
buildings, ten cents on the one hundred dollars ; unimproved lots 
ten cents ; each free male inhabitant, twenty-five cents ; each 
slave twenty-five cents ; each wholesale and retail store, eight 
dollars; each trading boat, peddler or hawker, ten dollars; 
each lawyer or doctor practicing for profit, two dollars ; each 
tavern keeper, three dollars ; each retailer of spirits, without 
tavern license, ten dollars."! 

An ordinance fixed the corporation limits as follows : 

"Beginning at the intersection of Wolf River with the 
Mississippi River; thence with Wolf River to the mouth of 
Bayou Gayoso ; thence with said bayou to the county bridge ; 
thence with the line of the second alley east of and parallel 
with Second Street to Union Street ; thence, at right angle to 
Second Street, to the western boundary of the tract of land 
granted to John Rice by the grant number 283, dated April 
25, 1789 ; thence with the said western boundary up the Missis- 
sippi River to the Wolf River. "$ 

At this meeting of the board a public printer was chosen 
and bonds were required of the recorder to the amount of 
$500, and the treasurer was to give bond for double the sum 
likely to come into his hands during the current year. All 
ordinances passed at this meeting were signed by all the mem- 
bers of the board, including the mayor. 

*Vedder. fVedder. jVedder. 



74 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

The two first years of her existence Memphis had a pop- 
ulation of 53, which increased rapidly until, by 1827, the year 
she received her first charter, there were estimated to be more 
than 500 inhabitants. 

The first board of mayor and aldermen of this little western 
town started to work under difficulties, with little money and 
many needs, as Memphis, like other infants, needed much 
expenditure to bring her to useful maturity. As the town 
grew the authorities appropriated what they could for public 
benefits and at a meeting held in October they gave eighty 
dollars for improving Chickasaw Street and one hundred and 
twenty dollars for building a wharf at the lowest steamboat 
landing. 

When the second election was held in the city the alder- 
men elected were M. B. "Winchester, Samuel Douglass, William 
A. Hardy, John D. Graham, Augustus L. Humphrey, Joseph L. 
Davis and Robert Fearn. They again chose Marcus B. Win- 
chester for mayor. During this year the office of town sur- 
veyor was created and provision made for a superintendent of 
graveyards. 

When Memphis had enjoyed two years of corporate gov- 
ernment it was conceded to be successful and improvements 
were manifest. In the second corporate year the charter was 
amended, giving Memphis all the powers of the older city, 
Nashville, thus constituting it a city. The charter of this 
year also provided that the mayor should not hold office under 
the United States Government, and on March 4, 1829, when 
another municipal election took place, Winchester could not 
be elected mayor, as he was postmaster. The mayor elected 
for this year was Isaac Rawlings, he by this time being one of 
the staunchest supporters of the corporation that he had so 
vehemently fought two years before. His service was so sat- 
isfactory that in 1830, he was again elected by his fellow 
aldermen as mayor. During this administration a town hall 
was erected on the southeast corner of Market Square and was 
a great pride to the little city on the Mississippi. 

In August of this year Memphis was divided into three 
wards: "Ward No. 1 comprising all that part of Memphis 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 75 

northeast of a direct line from the Mississippi River to Overton 
Street; thence with said street to the Bayou Gayoso. Ward 
No. 2, all that part of the aforementioned line to Overton 
Street, to Bayou Gayoso and northeast of a direct line from 
the Mississippi to Winchester Street, and thence with Winches- 
ter Street to the eastern boundary of the town. Ward No. 3, 
all that part of Memphis south of the last mentioned line." 

The next year Seth Wheatley was elected mayor and the 
year following, 1832, Robert Lawrence. The succeeding 
election brought Isaac Rawlings back to the head of the alder- 
men's table as mayor, which seat of honor he held for three 
consecutive terms. 

Improvement of streets, paying bills and assessing taxes 
chiefly occupied the august city board during this administra- 
tion, but one other important accomplishment was the organi- 
zation and equipment of the city's first fire-engine company, a 
vital addition to the town's safety but, as was common with 
fire companies in those days, this organization became a politi- 
cal power, largely influencing the control of municipal elections. 

Early court proceedings and justice in the young city were 
often crude, as the citizens and people to handle affairs were 
themselves often so. For instance, once in the early twenties 
a jury was trying a man for his life. Six were for acquittal 
and six for conviction. Finding that they could not come to 
an agreement it was proposed that a game of "seven-up" 
decide the question. The game proved a close and exciting 
one and ended for acquittal. Such was justice with men 
accustomed to gambling. As men's lives trend, so their view- 
points are formed. 

Gambling was prevalent all along the Mississippi River in 
those days and continued to be so for a number of years. The 
gamblers multiplied and became such a power for evil that 
towns began driving them out forcibly unless they would 
agree to leave peaceably. In 1835 many of them had gathered 
in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where they became such a menace 
that they were ordered by the town authorities to leave, and 
those who refused to do so were hung. That drove the sur- 
vivors from the Mississippi town and they were also ordered 



76 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

to leave other places, after which Memphis became overrun 
with them. Human birds of prey are as great a menace to a 
community as are eagles and hawks to unoffending domestic 
fowls, and the respectable citizens of Memphis felt outraged 
that this class of society should prey upon the decency and 
good government of the city. Efforts were made to oust 
them to no avail until there was finally a public meeting of 
reputable men, after which the gamblers were ordered to 
leave or expect the treatment received by some of their fellows 
in Vicksburg. That threat, which bade fair to be carried 
into effect, had the desired result and for a while Memphis 
was freed from that element. 

In 1834 candidates for the state constitutional convention 
in Memphis were all abolitionists and the man elected, Adam 
Alexander, was strong in announcing his views against slavery, 
but he was opposed to emancipation until a scheme of practical 
colonization had been determined upon. The fact that he 
was elected proves that his was the sentiment most prevalent 
in the community at that time. Another proof of the feeling 
in favor of emancipation in that period is that "many peti- 
tions were sent to the convention from a number of counties, 
praying that some system of gradual emancipation be agreed 
upon. ' ' 

But acts of extremists did much to reverse the prevalent 
feeling and to embitter the white people in the South. One 
of these was the uprising of Nat Turner in 1831 in Virginia, 
and was really the beginning of intensified feelings of hatred 
between the two races and between the North and South. The 
slavery code became more rigidly enforced in Southern States, 
as a means of protection to the whites, although many influ- 
ential Southern people continued to plead for emancipation, 
declaring slavery to be a drawback to any country, harmful 
both to whites and blacks. Most people favored Jefferson's 
plan of gradual emancipation in order that the negro should 
thereby be fitted for life in a civilized country, where customs 
were so different from those of the savagery they had left in 
the jungles of Africa, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 77 

One resolution adopted in a Southern meeting for eman- 
cipation, read: 

"Resolved, That slavery is morally, politically 
and economically wrong, and that its abolition by the approach- 
ing convention will be proper, expedient and practical." But 
this sentiment for justice gave way to feelings of resentment 
and revenge as fanatics in the North and South tried to stir 
up negro insurrections, and it became common for such agitat- 
ors to be whipped and driven from the South. But not in 
the South alone did this treatment endure. It is well known 
how Garrison, for his extreme abolitionism and scathing sen- 
tences, was dragged through the streets of Boston and all but 
killed. For like offences Macintosh was burned to death in 
St. Louis and Lovejoy murdered by a mob in Illinois. In 
Connecticut, Prudence Crandall was imprisoned for teaching 
colored children to read, while at that time Frances Wright 
had the permission of Shelby County and the help of Mem- 
phis people to do the same thing as extensively as she chose, 
in her colony at Germantown, Tennessee. Miss Crandall was 
afterwards mobbed and ordered to leave the State of Con- 
necticut and was in danger of her life. 

It was an outcome of this bitterness of feeling being 
brought to bear that caused Tennessee about this time to take 
away from free negroes the privilege of the ballot, in opposi- 
tion to Section 8, of the Bill of Rights, "that no free man shall 
be disseized of his freehold, liberties or privileges, or outlawed 
or exiled, or in any manner destroyed or deprived of his life, 
liberty or property, but by the judgment of his peers or the 
law of the land." 

The question of race supremacy seems to have been a 
strong one in United States History, and many dissensions 
arose in those days of the first half of the Nineteenth Century 
concerning dealings between the whites and negroes and be- 
tween the whites and Indians. The Indians were driven back, 
back, as white men advanced and became numerous and in 
1835 the Chickasaws, who had held the bluffs on the Mississippi 
River many generations before white men knew these heights 
at all, were removed from their Mississippi reservation farther 



78 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

west, to what was called the Indian Territory. This action 
of the Government was strongly opposed by many white people 
and stands "as one instance of the white man's perfidy and 
oppression."* 

The population of Memphis by this time had increased to 
1,239. 

In the early thirties a strong rivalry sprang up between 
Memphis and Randolph, a town forty-two miles northeast 
lof Memphis, situated much like the latter on a high bluff 
on the Mississippi River. This was the second formidable 
rival of Memphis, the first being Raleigh Springs in the same 
county and eleven miles northeast of the Bluff City. 

In 1827 the county-seat had been changed from Memphis 
to Raleigh, which had made the latter a rival to be feared. 
Many people moved from Memphis to the new county seat, but 
its situation for business was not so good as that of Memphis, 
and this in time told in favor of Memphis, as she grew again 
while Raleigh dwindled, business being a greater force in the 
building of a city than capitalship. 

But Randolph, equal in situation — and some said better — • 
became formidable indeed, and for years Memphis suffered 
greatly from the preference of traders for Randolph, many 
ignoring her entirely for the landing higher up the river. 
Randolph continued to grow and flourish until the great 
financial calamity of 1837. That crash, brought about by 
"wild-cat" banking, carried disaster all over the country. 
That year's sufferings, brought on by speculators trying to 
carry on banking without convertible security, is a matter of 
history and many business houses and individuals were finan- 
cially ruined. 

At the time of this disaster, Randolph was a rapidly grow- 
ing little city, having twenty-two business houses, all of which 
were doing well, the town being at that time the real business 
center of this section of the country. But this crash so affected 
her business interests that a decline commenced from which 
she never recovered. By degrees her trade came to Memphis 

*Keating. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 79 

and her misfortune became the latter 's good fortune. This 
disaster, carrying failure and ruin in all directions, really- 
started the flow of business to Memphis. From that time the 
substantial commerce of our city really began and she made 
such rapid strides that soon Randolph ceased to be a compet- 
itor at all. 

Young Memphis also had three rivals on the Arkansas 
side of the river — Mound City, which flourished for a while; 
Hopefield, really giving for a time the hope that its name implied 
but ending in hope ; and Pedraza, formerly Foy 's Point, which 
had in still earlier days been an important landing and trading 
center. Still another rival had birth in Mississippi, founded 
by Mississippi planters, who objected to paying fifty cents a 
bale for storing, handling and insuring cotton in Memphis, but 
"Commerce," as the Mississippi town was named, was not a 
success and Memphis continued to handle, store and insure 
Mississippi cotton. 

Sectional jealousies did much to retard progress in the 
early history of Memphis. Jealousy was displayed between 
some of the leading citizens ; it was much in evidence between 
sections of the city ; rival towns sprang up and even the State 
was charged with slighting the western city. In January, 
1830, $150,000 of unappropriated funds from the sale of 
Hiawassee lands was placed at the disposal of the state. Of 
this amount $60,000 was appropriated to Middle Tennessee, the 
same to East Tennessee and for West Tennessee only $30,000. 

"West Tennessee chafed at such slights and while Seth 
Wheatley was mayor of Memphis — 1831-1832 — the city 
expressed much dissatisfaction at her standing in the state. 
The discontent took on such proportions that discussions of 
the advantage of forming a new state arose. This new state 
was to include West Tennessee, all of Kentucky that was 
bounded by the Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers, and 
"that part of Mississippi known as The Indian Reserve. 
The names suggested for this new state were the same as had 
been discussed for naming the infant Memphis in 1819— Jack- 
son, Chickasaw and Memphis— the last leading in popularity. 



80 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

General Andrew Jackson favored the idea of this new state, 
but the discussion was dropped and no action ever taken. 

During this same administration Tennessee, Mississippi 
and the Chickasaw Indians had a wrangle about the owner- 
ship of Memphis. Tennessee claimed that the town was within 
her territory, Mississippi that it was within hers and the 
Indians that it was on part of their reservation. A new survey 
was made which left the city four and a half miles further 
north of the boundary line between Tennessee and Mississippi. 
This put the city wholly in Tennessee and entirely out of the 
Indian Reserve. 

Although many rough characters came to Memphis in her 
youth, as is usual with new settlements, she was fortunate in 
having some most excellent leaders. Among these was a 
quartette of men, entirely different as individuals and some- 
times antagonistic, but always one on the subject of Memphis 
and her advancement, namely, Andrew Jackson, the rugged 
hero of that time, nicknamed "Old Hickory;" Isaac Rawlings, 
sometimes narrow but ever stanch and honest ; Marcus B. 
Winchester, an unselfish citizen and a finished gentleman; and 
Judge John Overton, the scholarly lawyer and shrewd man 
of business. These were four friends of which any town might 
boast, and much of the city's importance was built upon the 
foundation laid by these men. Judge Overton was a close 
friend of Jackson's and often helped the less learned old hero 
with papers and other things that required the scholar more 
than the soldier and pioneer. And as the Judge was a close 
and unselfish friend to the other man, so was he as unselfish 
and true to the young city whose fortunes he had undertaken 
to share and to uplift. 

Up to 1840 the growth of Memphis was very slow but the 
decade beginning with that year was a healthful one for the 
struggling city. Property had increased a great deal in value 
and the mayor, Thomas Dixon, and aldermen had more money 
at their disposal for civic improvements. The census showed 
a population of 1,799. 

0. F. Vedder gives the tax list of 1840, as follows: "Four 
hundred and ninety-nine town lots, value $552,425, taxes 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 81 

$4,143.18 ; two hundred twenty-one slaves, value $107,500, taxes 
$268.75; three hundred twenty-four white polls, $324.00; six 
carriages, $24.00." 

By 1841 the duties of the mayor had so increased with 
the growth of the city that the sentiment of the people was 
taken in regard to making the office one with monetary reward, 
the mayor previous to that time having given his services to 
the city. The vote was in favor of paying the chief officer for 
his services and in November of that year it was decided to 
allow $500.00 per year for this purpose. 

William Spickernagle was the first to occupy this salaried 
position and he entered upon his duties with a determination 
to straighten out a number of city affairs. One of these was 
a difficulty with flatboatmen heretofore unmastered. In the 
early days of Memphis most of her traffic was carried on by 
flatboats, consequently much of the city revenue should have 
been from this source. The flatboatmen were usually a lawless 
set who objected to the small wharfage exacted and refused to 
recognize any authority of the wharf-master to collect it from 
them, banding together to resist him, even using violence when 
necessary to gain their end. Mayor Spickernagle realized how 
much was lost to the city treasury by this species of lawless- 
ness from men who enjoyed city privileges as much as any 
other class of people here and made their own living from 
Memphis trade, and took the matter in hand. 

A dauntless wharf-master, Colonel G. B. Locke, was 
appointed, to be paid twenty-five per cent of all his collections. 
These collections were to be made by force, if necessary, and 
two volunteer military companies offered their services. The 
boatmen, seeing that a wharf-master noted for fearlessness, 
a city government and the military were organized against 
them, succumbed and paid the trifling tax required, but a few 
desperadoes continued to resist and openly defied the wharf- 
master. The military was called out. Citizens also came to 
his aid and, although outnumbered by the boatmen, after a 
severe encounter in which the leader of the beligerants was 
killed, order was restored and Memphis thereafter profited 
from her flatboat revenue. It is told that the wounded leader 



82 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

before dying said that he wished he had paid the tax, as he 
would not have missed the money and most of his profits were 
gained from Memphis, but that he did not want to "give in." 

It was in this year that Congress appointed commissioners 
to locate a navy yard somewhere in the Mississippi Valley. 
Public-spirited citizens of Memphis became alert and advo- 
cated their city as a suitable site for this navy yard, which 
bespoke progress and success for the place where it should 
be located. 

On September 23, 1841, a meeting was held by the board 
of mayor and aldermen to take action on the navy yard, and 
the following preamble and resolutions were adopted : 

"Whereas, the government of the United States has 
passed an act promising the establishment of an armory on 
the western waters, and believing the local situation of Mem- 
phis is advantageously situated for such an establishment, 
therefore 

"Resolved, That the mayor be authorized to appoint 
a committee of five citizens, to draw up a memorial to the 
President of the United States, setting forth the claims of 
Memphis and the advantages she possesses for such an estab- 
lishment. ' ' 

The commissioners, after examining the Mississippi River 
from the mouth of the Ohio down, reported the best loca- 
tion to be at the mouth of Wolf River at Memphis, Tennessee. 
Memphis considered this a great honor and advantage and was 
glad to convey to the United States, for $25,000, the tract 
of ground surveyed by the committee appointed by Congress 
for a navy yard and depot, provided the same should be required 
within three years for the establishment of such navy yard 
and depot. In December, 1844, the transfer was made and 
the Government took possession of the property. A rope walk 
and the neccessary buildings were constructed, all being com- 
pleted in 1846. This addition promised to be a vast benefit to 
Memphis, and the navy yard became a busy place. A great 
iron steamship, the "Alleghany," was built and equipped 
here, except her hull. She cost the Government $500,000 but 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 83 

did not prove satisfactory. Some other work was carried on 
but the navy yard was never a success. 

By that time feelings of enmity between the South and the 
North had begun to be strong and this Southern navy yard 
was neglected by the government to such an extent that it 
never repaid the outlay in fitting it up. The appropriations 
made for its support were so small that they barely paid the 
officers' salaries, and later the government refused to keep it 
in operation. In 1853 Congress passed a resolution "to donate 
the entire navy yard property at Memphis to the city authori- 
ties," a gift Memphis did not want, although it had cost the 
United States $1,500,000. It was impossible for the little city 
to keep a navy yard operative, so the property was used for 
shops, storing cotton, and a few other purposes, by rapid degrees 
going to decay. 

But Memphis had not depended upon this navy yard for 
her progress. She had plodded on, ever adding to her business 
and civic improvements. In 1842 her charter was amended, 
by which act the city was divided into five wards, each ward 
entitled to elect two aldermen. This act also changed the city's 
boundaries and gave to the people the power of electing the 
mayor. The boundaries were given as follows: "North by 
Bayou Gayoso, east by Bayou Gayoso, south by Union Street, 
west by the main channel of the Mississippi and Wolf River to 
the mouth of the Bayou Gayoso." 

Memphis had wretched streets and the city authorities 
seemed never able to spend enough to improve them much, but 
in 1845, when J. J. Finley was mayor, action was taken for 
their improvement and considerable work on them was accom- 
plished, as well as provision made for an annual appropri- 
ation for the same purpose. 

During this part of the century citizens all over the coun- 
try were imbued with the spirit of improvement and in Novem- 
ber, 1845, the great International Improvement Convention met 
in Memphis, presided over by the Honorable John C. Calhoun, 
the noted South Carolina statesman. This important meeting 
gave Memphis more eclat than she had before enjoyed and 
among her guests were some of the most prominent men in the 



84 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

United States. One of the improvements discussed at this 
meeting was making a deep waterway from the Great Lakes 
to the Gulf of Mexico. This meeting benefitted Memphis and 
brought many of her citizens to realize the advantages that 
might be gained by a united and harmonious city. 

It has been told that from her earliest days rivalry 
between the sections of Memphis existed, and this state of 
affairs did not improve as the years continued to pass. Some 
bitterness was first brought about by the proprietors, or early 
owners of Memphis property, each of whom wanted the city 
planted on the spot most advantageous to himself, and the 
people of each section would wrangle for roads and other 
improvements to be brought to their parts of the town. Bitter- 
ness grew until rivalry became a retarding influence in the 
city's growth. North and South Memphis people became so 
rancorous that in either section it was considered degrading 
to live in the other. South Memphis people dubbed North 
Memphis "Pinch," derived from what some South Memphians 
termed the "pinched" condition of some of the poor families 
living on Wolf River; the name was afterwards applied to 
all Wolf River inhabitants and then to all of North Memphis. 
In retaliation the Pinchites called South Memphis "Sodom," 
because of the alleged wickedness of the place. 

Memphis first had her greatest strength in the northern 
part of the city, but by 1835 quite a community occupied the 
section south of Union Street and antagonism there grew severe 
against North Memphis or "Pinch." The growth of each 
section, as well as the growth of the enmity between them, 
was at white heat for about a decade from this year when a 
crisis came and it was thought necessary to form two cities. 
So in 1846 the Legislature passed an Act incorporating South 
Memphis, with a mayor and eight aldermen, the city to be 
divided into four wards, laid off into blocks, 1 to 67, all south 
of Union Street and east of Bayou Gayoso. This charter was 
afterwards amended and included Fort Pickering as far as 
Jackson Street and eastward to LaRose Street. January 
seventeenth of this year an election for the new town officers 
was held, when Sylvester Bailey was elected mayor and A. B. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 85 

Shaw, H. H. Means, George W. Davis, Wardlaw Howard, J. E. 
Merriman, John Brown, J. P. Keiser and James Kennedy, 
aldermen. 

In September of this year Joseph Wright took a census 
which showed the population of Memphis to be, including 
South Memphis, Chelsea in North Memphis and all divisions 
of the city, 7,782. 

National as well as municipal dissensions arose when, in 

1842, trouble with Mexico came. People became much excited. 
Memphis raised a company of soldiers to go to Texas and these, 
together with a company from Randolph, left on the steamer 
"Star of the West," amid shoutings, farewells and Godspeeds 
of the people. 

South Memphis grew and property increased much in 
value in that section of the city. The Gayoso House, destined 
to be one of the greatest hotels in the South, was begun 
in 1842. This hotel was beautifully situated, being built in a 
stately grove, overlooking the Mississippi River. Churches 
and other buildings were going up rapidly and the board of 
mayor and aldermen made appropriations for street improve- 
ments, which were much needed. A steamboat wharf had 
been graded and the Market Street wharf was completed. 

The first telegraph line to New Orleans was completed in 

1843, which made the people of the two Mississippi River 
cities feel much closer drawn together. This telegraph was 
erected and owned by a Memphis company, Thomas H. Allen, a 
substantial citizen of Memphis, being president. 

Strangers with money having heard of the possibilities of 
Memphis, came to "look around" and some of them being fav- 
orably impressed, stayed to invest their money and make their 
homes in Memphis. 

The following year saw the Gayoso House completed and 
opened to the public and it was during this same year that 
the United States made the big appropriation for a navy yard 
that promised so much and fulfilled so little. 

During this same year, 1844, James Knox Polk, a Tennes- 
seean, was elected President of the United States by the Demo- 
cratic party, his defeated opponent being Henry Clay, the 



86 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

great Whig leader. Polk was known to favor the annexation 
of Texas. 

This campaign brought out more sentiment in regard to 
slavery than had yet been done and abolitionism grew in the 
North and declined in the South. The annexation of Texas 
became a tremendous question. The slave states wanted the 
additional power that the big new territory would give them 
and the abolition states did not want the annexation for the 
same reason. Slavery became the greatest bone of contention 
in the country, becoming an important question in politics, 
churches and the social world and remained so for many years 
to follow. 

The idea had been conceived that a canal from "Wolf River 
above Stanley's Ford, about eleven miles east of Memphis, 
dug westward to the Mississippi River or to the mouth of 
Wolf River, would be a great advantage to Memphis in that 
it would furnish water for the city and power for manufactur- 
ing and other purposes. This canal was hotly discussed by 
the papers and people and on November 4, 1842, the Appeal 
published a map showing the proposed route and the specifi- 
cations of Colonel Morrison, who had made a survey. Colonel 
Morrison asserted that a canal eleven miles long, forty feet 
wide at the top and twenty-six feet wide at the bottom and 
four feet deep, could be dug for $50,000. It was to have a per- 
manent dam at Wolf River and a fall of forty-two and seventy- 
two one-hundredth feet, equal to four hundred horse-power. This, 
he said, would furnish power to the then proposed armory and 
navy yard and would run eight pairs of six feet millstones, five 
hundred thousand spindles for spinning cotton and one hun- 
dred power looms. Mayor Hickman and the aldermen advo- 
cated this project and many of the people became enthusiastic 
over it, though others opposed it. The Legislature took it up 
and in 1843 passed an act empowering the corporation of 
Memphis to build the canal and the mayor and aldermen were 
authorized to levy and collect a tax for the purpose of putting 
it through. It really seemed that the contemplated improve- 
ment would become a reality but the scheme lagged along until 
1845, when it was again revived and Mayor J. J. Finley adver- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 87 

tised in the Appeal "for bids for the construction of a canal 
from Wolf River to the city of Memphis; sealed proposals to 
be received up to the twentieth of July; the work to be paid 
for in the bonds of the corporation, having twenty years to 
run, the interest to be paid at Philadelphia semi-annually." 
Another survey was made and enthusiasm again aroused but 
that was as far as the matter went, though interest continued 
to be manifested at intervals. 

Mayor Finley announced to the public that the city was 
out of debt and that its revenue had increased forty per cent 
per annum for the past four years, amounting to $25,000. The 
population by this time had increased to 3,500. 

When General Andrew Jackson passed from this life on 
June 8, 1845, the whole nation mourned his loss, none more 
than little Memphis, whose beginning was largely due to his 
efforts, though later, when his private affairs became so strictly 
national, he had ceased to have connection with the town of his 
early interest and love. 

Texas was admitted to the Union in 1845 and April 24, 
1846, when war was declared by Mexico with the United 
States, Memphis became the center of much martial excitement. 
Almost nothing but war was discussed and Colonel Keating 
says that an earthquake on May 7, received only two lines 
mention in the paper. Military companies were formed both 
by native and foreign citizens and troops of soldiers left here 
for the scene of action, effusively patriotic and showered all 
along their route by attention from patriotic ladies and other 
citizens,* 

As the war progressed most of the battles proved victor- 
ious for the United States, each of these successes receiving 
Memphis enthusiasm. In February, 1847, the battle of Buena 
Vista was won by General Taylor, after which that leader 
became a popular hero. Following this victory came Cerro 
Gordo, April 18, 1847, and in August of this same year Con- 
treras and Churubusco were taken. August also gave the United 
States Santa Fe and New Mexico. September 14, the City of 

*See chapter on the Military History of Memphis for the deeds 
of these volunteers. 



88 History of Memphis, Tetmessee. 

Mexico was captured, all these making the year 1847 rich in vic- 
tories for the United States. The following year a treaty of peace 
was obtained between our country and Mexico, President 
Polk proclaiming peace between the two countries July 4th. 
This war had cost the United States one hundred million 
dollars and the lives of thirteen thousand soldiers,t but it 
gave her a great increase in territory. Besides Texas and that 
which came from the victories of war, this country paid three 
million dollars at the close of the war and pledged herself for 
twelve million dollars in three annual installments and assumed 
three million, five hundred thousand dollars of debts due from 
Mexico to American citizens. 

The new accessions gave to us Texas, Arizona, New 
Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Cali- 
fornia. 

Despite the excitement and interference of business 
caused by this war, in Memphis, the city continued to grow 
and her people to agitate business and general improvements, 
some of which were carried out and some others of which 
are still agitated, more than half a century later. 

As already stated, the great Commercial Convention of 
1845 held in Memphis, had given to the city a dignity not 
before felt and told the country at large of her advantageous 
situation for a city of importance, while it awoke the residents 
to the futility and even absurdity of the sections pulling apart, 
and so did much toward bringing about a feeling of municipal 
harmony. 

John Timothy Trezevant, who was elected mayor of South 
Memphis in 1847, was an unselfish, public-spirited man and 
while in office used his influence and arguments to bring about 
an amicable feeling between Memphis and South Memphis. 
He urged that their interests were the same and that unity 
would be more advantageous to both. The new town of 
South Memphis had not been a success, standing alone 
as most of the merchants still preferred "Pinch," so that 
mutual interests ought to bring the sections together. His 

tHart's Essentials in American History. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 89 

efforts and those of other broad-minded citizens bore fruit 
which ripened rather slowly but did finally come to full 
maturity. 

Memphis kept getting deeper into debt and by September, 
1847, her indebtedness amounted to $80,000, which caused 
considerable discontent. This delinquency and the fear of 
more debt caused the Wolf River canal project not only to be 
deferred but almost abandoned, although at a meeting of the 
board of mayor and aldermen January 26, 1847, it was learned 
that they had received five bids for contracts for building the 
canal, the lowest being $104,000, to be paid in bonds. Of 
course none of these was accepted. But, despite debt, civic 
improvements went forward. Bonds were issued this year by 
Mayor Banks to the amount of $92,000 for various improve- 
ments. There was some irregularity about the issuance of these 
bonds, they having been irregularly numbered on the Regis- 
ter's books. They were issued for grading Center landing; 
for a medical college ; for grading and graveling streets ; for 
plank roads leading in different directions from the city and 
for the Exchange Building. The bonds for this building were 
issued to W. A. Bickford who, with this assistance from the 
council, erected a block of buildings on Exchange Square, from 
Poplar to Exchange Streets. In this important addition to 
Memphis, accommodations were provided for a city hall and 
court rooms, a council chamber and mayor's office, besides a hall 
for the medical college and other accommodations. In consid- 
eration of these municipal betterments Mr. Bickford was given 
a lease on the ground, part of Exchange Square, for ninety- 
nine years. 

A telegraph was completed between Memphis and Nash- 
ville, bringing these two cities closer together and making their 
interests more at one. About this same time papers all over the 
country were getting the New York dispatches to Cincinnati 
concerning foreign affairs, and in this way they got foreign 
news in about twenty-two days. This was important to Mem- 
phis as it increased the prominence of her market and cotton 
dealers were especially benefitted. 

Again the charter of Memphis underwent a change, the 



90 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Legislature, January 21, 1848, passing an act that reduced all 
previous charters of Memphis into one. This new Act defined 
the city limits as ''Beginning at a point in the middle of the 
Mississippi River, opposite to the center of Union Street ; thence 
eastwardly with a line passing through the center of Union 
Street to the western bank of Bayou Gayoso; thence down 
said bayou with the western bank of the same to the point 
of its intersection with Wolf River; thence down Wolf River 
with its northwesterly bank to its intersection with the Missis- 
sippi River ; thence down the Mississippi River to a point oppo- 
site the north side of Market Street; thence to a point in the 
main channel of the Mississippi River opposite to the said 
north side of Market Street; and thence down the said main 
channel of the said river to the place of beginning. ' ' 

The charter of this date also limited the tax-levy to 
"three fourths of one cent upon all property taxable for State 
purposes and the city council was given authority to borrow 
money to the amount of the annual revenue of the city, and 
no more in any one year, to establish hospitals." It also 
authorized the establishment of a system of free schools, the 
first free schools of the city. Ward boundaries were also 
changed in this year in order to more equally distribute city 
representation in the board of aldermen. 

A year later this charter was thrust aside for an entirely 
new Act of the Legislature, incorporating both Memphis and 
South Memphis into one city, under the name of the city of 
Memphis, as by 1849 the desire for unity of all the sections 
had grown strong. A few were not pleased with this union 
and even fought it, but in all communities may be found 
stubborn and near-sighted natures that will not give up a 
first opinion even when shown by actual failure that their 
methods are retarding the public good. But a year later, when 
a vote was taken for the consolidation of the city it was almost 
unanimous in favor of union. 

Sectional strifes continued even after the union was made 
but perfect harmony could scarcely be expected to follow 
immediately on the trail of recent bitter dissensions. The 
board of mayor and aldermen sometimes had difficulty in 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 91 

appeasing the different sections and sometimes in agreeing 
among themselves. 

The first city council included all the former aldermen of 
the two cities, making twenty-four in all, and this same num- 
ber was continued in the election of the following year, 1850, 
when Edwin Hickman was elected mayor. 

The boundaries of the newly united city were given as 
follows: ''Beginning in the middle of the Mississippi River, 
opposite the mouth of the Bayou Gayoso ; thence due east 
to and with Bayou Gayoso to Auction Street ; out Auction and 
Raleigh Road to Avenue east (Dunlap), of town reserve 
(Manassas) ; thence south with said avenue to the South Mem- 
phis tract; thence with its east line to its southeast corner; 
thence west with the south line to the east line of Butler tract, 
thence to its southeast corner; thence with its south line to 
center of the Mississippi River; thence with the river to the 
place of beginning, excluding the navy yard." 



i CHAPTER V 



The Census of 1850. The Building of Plank Roads. Rapid 
Growth of the City. Extension of the Telegraph System. 
The First Railroad to the Atlantic. Great Railroad Jubilee 
in ]\Ieraphis. The Financial Panic of 1857. Crime in 
Memphis. Uprising of the People and Mob Violence. 
Rescue of Able by N. B. Forrest. The Problem of Street 
Paving. The Bust of Andrew Jackson. ]\Iore Troubles 
Over Slavery. The John Brown Raid and Its Conse- 
quences. The First Paid Fire Department. 



^TT HE new decade and half century seemed auspicious for 
Lfl the united city. She had then a population of 8,841, 
of these 6,355 being white. The board of mayor and 
aldermen seemed wide-awake and they issued bonds in 1850 to 
the amount of $119,000 for civic improvements. Plank roads 
were constructed or extended to the most important points in 
Tennessee and Mississippi and the river trade was, one writer 
says, "doubling upon itself every year."* 

Memphis people realize more and more the benefits derived 
from the union of the two small towns and the Bluff City was 
beginning to really be a power. The states around her were 
settling rapidly. Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas had 
become important cotton states and Memphis was their central 
market. The city showed progress and improvement in all 
directions and Colonel Keating says of her growth in the early 
fifties, "Business grew in volume and value to an extent not 
then surpassed by Cincinnati, St. Louis or even New Orleans 
herself. ' ' 

*These plank roads, or more properly, planked roads, the road- 
way being laid with heavy planks, were constructed to Big Creek and 
Raleigh in Shelby County, LaGrange in Fayette County, Tennessee, 
and to Holly Springs and Hernando, Mississippi. 



History of Memphis, Ten7iessee. 93 

Memphis had been fortunate in her leading men and at 
this period she had some of the best. People who had her 
interest at heart had always been very much in earnest, spar- 
ing neither themselves nor their money in her behalf. These 
friends had realized the possibilities of a great city, despite 
the drawbacks that came up so frequently and worked to over- 
come the latter and make the possibilities grow into realities. 
This was recognized beyond the city too, and papers of other 
cities frequently had favorable paragraphs about Memphis or 
her citizens. The Nashville Banner, in 1850, had these words 
for a Memphis man of business : ' ' Memphis can boast of a 
single citizen who in the past eighteen months has aided public 
enterprise more liberally in proportion to his wealth than per- 
haps any individual in the South," meaning R. C. Brinkley. 
A few others were quite as liberal as Mr. Brinkley and Mem- 
phis seemed on the upward bound. 

But Memphis and the country had a curse — slavery! 
Slavery had been introduced into the land as a convenient and 
profitable form of labor. The negro had been enslaved from 
time immemorial, both by more enlightened races and by vic- 
torious tribes of his own race, so when he was introduced into 
the United States as a slave it was in accordance with a cus- 
tom then pervading the world. Slavery had been a matter- 
of-fact institution when the human race had been chiefly 
physical and physical might was power, but as spiritual life 
grew and broadened human minds began to look up and 
beyond self and selfish comfort to a respect of the rights of 
others. People were learning the Golden Rule and slavery 
could not endure with this advancement. But though the 
world as a whole had made great moral strides and freedom 
for all men was asserting its right and being advocated in all 
civilized regions, people were very human still, and by degrees 
the cause of slavery in the New World grew to be more a 
theme of antagonism and enmity than the freeing of a race. 

Abolitionists had formerly been as common in the South 
as in the North, but as murder and other evils grew out of 
abolition fanaticism in slave states, Southerners lost sight of 
the original cause of abolitionism to free the slaves, in the feel- 



94 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

ing of defense for state rights and home. So, while the 
abolitionist was elected to office in Memphis in 1834 and chiefly 
on account of his avowed tenets, such an election in the fifties 
would have been impossible. This bitterness between the sec- 
tions increased until such hatred existed that in the South to 
be called a Northerner was an opprobrium of the direst sort 
and vice versa. Politics of the two sections became rapidly 
antagonistic and speakers on both sides used strong denunci- 
tory language. The territory gained from Mexico had become 
the source of fiery controversy as to whether it should be 
entered slave or free. 

But the time for final outburst had not yet come and 
above the surging undercurrent of prognostication and unrest 
Memphis continued to grow and prosper and her people to 
think of strictly home subjects. Nor was charity for the poor 
forgotten and in 1850 Memphis women gave a "Fair" in Odd 
Fellows Hall, from which they netted two thousand dollars 
for the unfortunates. Other enterprises, charitable and civic, 
went forward with the decade. 

Mayor A. B. Taylor, in his first message, in 1852, stated 
the annual expenses of the city to be $75,000. 

In 1853 the judiciary bill was amended so as to provide 
"that the qualified voters of Shelby County shall elect a judge 
of the Common Law and Chancery Court of the City of Mem- 
phis." Also, that "the qualified voters of the counties of 
Shelby, Fayette, Tipton and Henderson, shall elect a judge 
for the eleventh Judicial Circuit, composed of said counties," 
and "the qualified voters of the fifth, thirteenth and fourteenth 
Civil Districts in Shelby County, in which Memphis and Fort 
Pickering are situated, shall elect a judge of the Criminal 
Court of Memphis and also an attorney-general for said Crim- 
inal Court." 

Another new city charter came to Memphis in 1854, the 
Legislature of that year having passed an Act for such a 
measure, including the navy yard in the corporation. And 
with increased territory came increased population; the inhab- 
itants numbered this year 12,687. 

As this decade advanced Memphis made tremendous strides 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 95 

in business and the city fathers made big plans for improve- 
ments, some of which were accomplished. Whole blocks of 
business buildings were erected and so great was the demand 
for the houses under construction that much of the labor on 
them was done by gaslight. The first five-story building in 
the state was erected in Memphis in 1856. 

New residences sprang up all over the city too to supply 
the many new residents who came to make Memphis their 
abode. Telegraph lines continued to draw Memphis into 
closer touch with other cities; in 1857 Henry A. Montgomery, 
an enterprising citizen, completed a telegraph line between 
Memphis and Tuscumbia, Alabama, and the year following he 
completed another line to Little Rock, with a branch line at 
Helena, Arkansas. The railroads were causing much of the 
rapid advancement going on. These brought towns into closer 
communication and made traffic easy on the land, while steam- 
boats in increasing numbers continued to ply the river north 
and south, conveying passengers and traffic. 

In 1857 the Memphis and Charleston Railroad was com- 
pleted and its completion brought great rejoicing in Memphis, 
in Charleston and in towns all along the road. In May a big 
celebration in recognition of this feat was held in the Bluff 
City when prominent men from both the ocean and river cities 
took part and hundreds of visitors came to witness the cere- 
monies. Senator James C. Jones, who had driven the first 
spike in the first rail of the road, was also honored by being 
allowed to drive the last, and this completing spike was driven 
amid very enthusiastic demonstrations. Senator Jones 
addressed the crowd, presaging a great future for Memphis, 
now joined to the Atlantic Ocean. The Appeal stated that over 
twenty-five thousand people participated in the celebration. 
Many speeches were made in Court Square, all full of enthusi- 
asm over connecting the Mississippi River with the ocean and 
of bringing ''the ancient and chivalrous city of Charleston on 
the sounding shores of the Atlantic," to Memphis, the vigorous 
and growing younger city on the Great River. The Appeal 
said, "We rejoice at the annihilation of distance and the 
approximation of neighboring districts which hitherto, moun- 



96 History of 31eniphis, Tennessee. 

tain, river and slow locomotion have kept apart and sundered." 
The paramount ceremony of this day's exercises was the pour- 
ing into Mississippi waters of two hogsheads of ocean water 
brought from Charleston for the purpose. This was managed 
by the fire companies, firemen of the Phoenix Company using 
their engine, gorgeously decorated for the occasion. Visiting 
firemen were tendered the honor of using the hose and throw- 
ing the salty water into the river. As the stream shot through 
the air and then mingled with the waters of the river, a great 
shout went up from the throats of thousands of people witness- 
ing the scene from wharf, bluff, boat. Front Row windows or 
other places within sight, where human beings could find 
accommodation. Later in the month Mayor William Porcher 
Miles of Charleston invited the Memphis mayor and all who 
would go, to Charleston to another celebration in honor of the 
completion of the road where, when the demonstration took 
place, enthusiasm proved quite as rousing as it had at Mem- 
phis. 

The Memphis and Charleston Railroad had been the cause 
of agitation for twenty-five or more years, or ever since the 
first railroad — the Memphis Railroad Company — had been 
chartered by the State in 1831, changed in 1833 to the Atlantic 
and Mississippi Railroad Company, so the final completion of 
the line was of course a cause of much satisfaction to the pro- 
jectors, the owners and the people who were to be benefitted. 
The president of this road was Mr. Samuel Tate. 

Crops of the South were abundant, each successful year 
adding to Memphis growth and prosperity and continuously 
adding to her importance as a market. In 1857 this rapid 
growth had a check, brought about by bank failures through- 
out the country. There was a great decline in railroad stocks 
and State stocks in the eastern cities fluctuated eight per 
cent in a single week. All securities except those of the 
Federal Government, felt the tremendous force of depression 
and the business outlook of our little city on the Mississippi 
took a tumble with its real estate, which had been booming 
and now went down with a crash. But the government called 
in its securities for payment, hoping thus to relieve the strin- 
gency of the market by throwing upon it $20,000,000 in gold. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 97 

and when this call came from the Secretary of the Treasury, 
there was rejoicing by the Democrats, who contrasted the con- 
dition with that of 1837, when the Government money was 
locked up in suspended banks in every part of the country. 

But this money depression, while it necessarily affected 
business, did not stop civic improvements in Memphis, though 
they continued more slowly for a time. 

Several murders and other crimes brought about by drink- 
ing and gambling, aroused the people to a determination to 
put such outrages down, so an organization was formed, as 
had been done in an earlier period of Memphis history, to drive 
the gamblers from town. Gamblers and debauchees, like other 
evils, are not easily eradicated when once they seem to get 
a grasp, but they can be defeated by determined citizens, if 
the paid officers fail in their duty, and this organization of 
respectability annoyed the gamblers of Memphis to such an 
extent that many of them left town and those remaining were 
not so sure of the firm footing they had before enjoyed — at 
least for a time. 

Some murders had been committed in the vicinity and 
gone unpunished so, during this time, when people were incensed 
over the manner in which crimes were being perpetrated, John 
Able shot and killed one Everson, the community was in no 
mood to let it pass lightly. Abie's father had killed a man in 
a saloon not long previous to this killing of Everson and both 
the senior and junior Able were gamblers and considered unde- 
sirable characters. Young Able was arrested and taken to 
jail but a large crowd had gathered round the Worsham House 
on the corner of Main and Adams Streets, where the killing had 
occurred. As the men increased in numbers their dispositions 
increased in resentment which grew into revenge and then to 
fury. Cries arose of "Mob him!" "Kill him!" "Hell be 
turned loose ! " " Take the law in our own hands and get rid 
of murderers and gamblers!" These men, seeking justice 
and desirous of ridding their town of crime grew as murderous 
as the object of their revenge and were willing to hang him 
without a trial, in the name of justice ! Oh, Justice, how 
many evils have been done in thy name ! Such inconsistencies 



98 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

occur along the pathway of civilization with a people seeking 
but not yet grown to a full knowledge of what real civilization 
is. 

Just when the men had allowed their anger and excitement 
to reach white heat and were ready to rush to the jail for 
their unlawful purpose, a large, handsome, commanding figure 
appeared on the balcony of the hotel and raised his hand for 
silence. This man was not accustomed to making speeches 
but he comprehended the necessity of quick action here and 
his appearance and commanding attitude silenced that mass 
so completely that every high-pitched word he uttered could be 
distinctly heard. In a few terse sentences he pointed out the 
unlawfulness of the act contemplated and emphasized that it 
would make matters much worse to mob the criminal than to 
allow him to have a fair trial. Objections were given utterance 
that there was no justice to be had in the courts but the man 
in the balcony said, "There is to be a mass meeting at the 
Exchange Building tomorrow evening for the purpose of reas- 
onably discussing a plan for enforcing the laws and putting 
down crime. Wait until then and do not increase the city's 
burden by restoring to mob law, that is no law at all ! " 

Strange to say, that furious mass dispersed almost im- 
mediately and awaited the meeting of the following night. 

When the evening for the mass meeting of citizens came 
the hall of the Exchange Building was filled and overflowing 
before the time appointed. When the proceedings commenced 
the crowd had grown restless and the mob spirit of the previ- 
ous day was again manifesting itself. Mayor Baugh stated the 
object of the gathering to be that of providing means for en- 
forcing laws and preserving peace and order in the city. He 
made a few remarks but could feel the undercurrent of impa- 
tience through the crowd and before the meeting had made 
much headway cries burst from the audience for revenge and 
taking the law into the hands of the people. A man from 
Mississippi arose and offered to lead any hundred men to the 
jail to get Able and hang him. Before ofiScers could arrest 
this disturber of the peace, one after another offered to join 
him until the whole throng in and out of doors caught the 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 99 

spirit of disorder and got beyond control. The mayor and 
other men on the rostrum tried in vain to restore order and 
reason. They found themselves helpless as well as the police- 
men who put forth their puny efforts to quell the mob. The 
men rushed forth and straight toward the jail. Alderman 
Hughes and Colonel Saffrans tried desperately to quiet the 
crowd but their words were wasted or not heard. 

"They must be stopped, but how can it be done?" 
exclaimed the helpless mayor. A vice-president of the meeting 
— the same man who had quelled the crowd before the Wor- 
sham House twenty-four hours before — asked the mayor why 
he did not stop the crowd at the jail. The officials looked at 
this questioner as though they thought he might be insane and 
one asked why he did not do it himself, as he was a citizen. 
Turning quickly to the mayor this big man asked, "Does being 
a citizen give me authority to rescue Able?" The chief 
officer told him that it did, but that one man or even their 
whole body would be helpless before that furious mob. "All 
right," responded the man with set jaw, flaming eyes and face 
red with determination. "I'll try," and he rushed from the 
building. 

When he reached the jail the jailer had been forced to 
give up his keys, Abie's cell had been opened and the culprit 
rushed in his night clothes to the navy yard, where the rope 
had already been placed around his neck. Abie's mother and 
sister were frantically pleading with the mobbers to spare 
the young man and he was trying in a feeble way to plead his 
cause and to soothe these relatives. He was allowed five 
minutes to speak and he used the time trying to point out the 
justice of a trial, but his words were drowned to all except 
the few nearest him and they were not to be moved from 
their purpose. The rope was thrown over a beam and men were 
pulling it to draw up the unfortunate man when the tall, 
brawny citizen rushed through the crowd straight to the 
victim, the flash of a keen knife-blade was seen and it severed 
the rope. After this bold act the citizen grasped the crim- 
inal by his arm and facing the astonished crowd exclaimed, 
"I am going to take this boy back to jail and keep him there 



100 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

until he has a trial ! ' ' The very daring of the act kept the 
crowd back for several seconds but as soon as a realization 
of the situation came to them there were cries of revenge and 
urgings to kill both the victim and his rescuer. ''Give us the 
murderer!" yelled several, "we'll get him anyhow!" "If 
you do," defiantly answered the recapturer, "it will be over 
my dead body!" and the man stood like a bulwark between 
Able and that raging crowd. "I came to turn him over to 
the proper authorities," he continued after other requests 
and threats, ' ' and I 'm going to do it or die in the attempt ! ' ' 

The intrepidity of this one daring soul actually awed 
some of the mobbers and they moved away but others rushed 
at him and only by quick thrusts and dodges did he escape 
being severely wounded or killed. He saw between himself 
and the jail an impassable jam of people determined on keep- 
ing him away. Glancing around his quick mind conceived the 
idea of eluding the crowd in the dim light and almost as quick 
as his thought followed the act of rushing suddenly forward 
and taking shelter between two piles of lumber. There he thrust 
Able behind him and with his powerful left arm and hand 
parried the blows of his pursuers. His scheme succeeded; 
those nearest him, that saw his act and knew the place of 
shelter were swept forward by the rushing crowd behind, 
who did not know what had become of Able and his rescuer, 
but supposed they were in close pursuit of the lost object of 
revenge, and actually rushed madly over or around the men 
they meant to catch. 

When the press had left him free to move the man hurried 
to the jail where he succeeded in getting the prisoner locked 
safely in his cell. But the mob was not long learning the 
truth and then their rush was for the jail. The jailer and 
other inmates were terrified at the ominous sounds without, 
but if the rescuer felt terror he did not show it. Ascertaining 
that his pistol was in proper order he stepped out onto the jail 
steps and facing that seething mob of three thousand human 
beings, threatened to shoot the first man who approached. 
Almost unreasonable as it may seem, that one man could stand 
against three thousand furious rioters, this hatless, disheveled. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 101 

torn, cut, determined man did that very thing. Some stones 
were thrown and a shot fired toward the man on the steps, but 
the determination for right and justice won and by degrees 
the whole three thousand dispersed and the man on the steps 
stood alone, the murderer behind him safe in his cell and the 
mob retreating before him. That man was Nathan Bedford 
Forrest, who, at a then not far-distant year was to be selected 
a leader and general in defense of his state and country and 
to be followed into battle by many men of that very mob. 

The Adams Express Company opened offices in Memphis 
in 1858, and established agencies in all the surrounding towns 
that could be reached by river or railroad. So now, with rail- 
roads, steamboats, telegraph and express privileges, the town 
had become a city, destined to be the greatest, said the people 
and papers, on the "artery" of the country, the Mississippi 
River. 

During the legislative session of 1857 and 1858 two more 
wards were created in Memphis, making eight in all. 

Memphis had an enormous problem, — her streets. Much 
money had been spent by the city for graveling, but the clay 
was so deep and soft that a foot of gravel would sink in a few 
years. In 1858 the graveling was covered by two feet of mud 
on Main Street and in some places had gone to a depth 
unknown, leaving mud-holes great enough to swallow a team. It 
was a common occurrence during wet weather for men, boys 
and slaves to lend helping hands and shoulders to unfortunate 
animals and vehicles that had become stalled on business 
and residence streets and it is recorded that a mule was 
drowned in a mudhole at the corner of Main and Monroe. There 
are also stories told by reliable citizens of oxen, mules and 
horses being prized out of mud on Main Street near Madison, 
and of a white boy being barely saved by a negro. That is a 
queer picture for us to contemplate today as we see electric- 
ears, carriages, and automobiles traveling easily and safely 
along that busy part of the city on asphalt streets. We who 
enjoy the easy travel of solid streets and roads today have 
small conception of the trials of our forefathers battling with 
the mud that swamped Memphis in those early days, and later. 



102 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

But we owe the comfort of eventual good thoroughfares to 
their continual paving, mending, filling, experimenting. 

We are wont in this life to go easily along, enjoying the 
comforts built for us by our predecessors, rarely thanking 
them; usually, if thinking of their efforts at all, smiling at 
their crude improvements, boasting, in our supercilious way, 
of our superiority over all that has gone before. We forget, 
or perhaps some of us have never been IJioughtful enough to 
know that without the hard work, the discoveries, the blunders, 
the successes of our forefathers, our present advantages and 
luxuries would have been impossible. 

The heavy traffic of Memphis made it necessary for some- 
thing substantial and lasting to be done with the streets so 
the city fathers of 1858 consulted engineers and other authori- 
ties of different parts of the country. After much discussion 
of granite cobble-stones, cedar blocks and other materials, 
gravel was again decided upon, though there was protest 
against it, and uptown Memphis was newly graveled to be in 
a short time again covered by mud and slush. Two years after 
this $500,000 was appropriated for the streets and wharves, 
this time up-town paving to be of cobble-stones. 

So Memphis struggled and progressed, as circumstances 
allowed, her people fighting their mud and other inconven- 
iences, ever striving to bring the town to the dignity of city- 
hood. 

Politics kept pace with business, Whigs and Democrats 
strenuously advocating their different views, but on the birth- 
day of Henry Clay, who had so lately been an idol of the 
country, both these parties met in amicable hospitality at the 
Commercial Hotel to commemorate the day and do honor to 
the orator and statesman who they alike admired, though all 
there had not agreed with his politics. 

In August of 1858 the yellow fever became so serious in 
New Orleans that many Memphis citizens felt the necessity of 
quarantine and agitated taking measures to that effect. The 
question was brought up before the board of mayor and alder- 
men and a resolution to lease ground on President's Island for 
quarantine buildings was discussed, but some of the members 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 103 

opposed it. One of them said, "1 never knew any good to come 
from quarantine. If Providence intended the fever to come 
here, it would come in spite of all we could do." 

But the awful yellow plague continued to spread and, 
despite the opposing aldermen, the mayor was authorized to 
lease property on Bray's Island at $600 per annum for quar- 
antine purposes, but the ground was never used. Alas, Mem- 
phis! If your people could have foreseen the future with its 
terrible yellow-fever days, would they have been so indifferent, 
and would they have thought that a kind Providence does not 
bring disease and suffering, but allows neglect and carelessness 
to be punished by plagues and other effects? The disease that 
year became rampant and spread to Natchez, Vicksburg and 
other towns above New Orleans, defying all treatment, and 
as there were many refugees in Memphis, the outlook for the 
city was alarming. But she escaped that year. 

The same August in which so many victims succumbed to 
the yellow demon brought world-wide rejoicing over the suc- 
cess of the Atlantic cable. The man who brought this great 
invention to a successful issue, Cyrus W. Field, had toiled long 
and thanklessly, having met with two failures that had caused 
the world to lose faith in him, but the world is usually a dis- 
heartening step-mother, not sympathetic enough to encourage 
unless she sees that success is inevitable. But success came 
to Field in 1858 and Memphis was not behindhand in honoring 
the patient and triumphant inventor, who had been born in 
the year of her own birth. Mayor Baugh of the little city on 
the Mississippi, directed by the board of aldermen, sent this 
message to the mayor of Manchester, England: "The city of 
Memphis on the shore of the Mississippi, the largest interior 
depot of cotton in America, sends her greetings to the city of 
Manchester, the largest manufacturing city of that staple in 
Great Britain, and desires to mingle her congratulations with 
those of her trans- Atlantic sister upon the successful establish- 
ment of the ocean telegraph." 

By 1859 the country was in a state of sectional upheaval, 
but in January of that year many patriotic citizens and guests 
were brought together in Court Square in Memphis to witness 



104 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the unveiling of the marble bust by Frazee of Andrew Jack- 
son, — "Old Hickory," — whom Memphians loved for the ser- 
vices he had rendered to their city in her infancy; whom 
Tennesseeans loved for his devotion to the State; and whom 
Americans loved for his untiring allegiance to his country. 
His country had meant more to him than life. For her he 
had suffered the horrors of war, having with him, to share 
those trials, many of Tennessee 's brave sons with equally brave 
sons from other states of his beloved motherland. Those true 
men suffered, as is the soldier's fate, but they won for the 
country they defended more security and a stronger union. 
The result of the Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815, where 
six thousand soldiers under Jackson against twelve thousand 
under Pakenham, secured that important stronghold to our 
Country and made lasting our possession of the great Father 
of Waters. So this marble bust, unveiled in Memphis fourteen 
years after the hero's death, was turned with its face to the 
river which he loved, defended and secured. 

Several times during Jackson's career secessions had 
been threatened for various causes by different states, and 
that hardy American had abhorred such a possibility. "Our 
Federal Union, it must and shall be preserved, ' ' were his well- 
known words and, in 1859, when feeling had grown bitter 
between the sister states, these words were placed below the 
bust of this great Southerner.* 

Strange inconsistencies occur along the generations, and 
this inscription, chosen for that monument at that time, was 
strange. Not that all the witnesses of that day's ceremonies 
approved of secession, for indeed, the majority of them did 
not and approved with all their hearts the inscription, "The 
Federal Union, it must be preserved," but turbulence was fast 
gathering and in a little over two years from that time the 
general Southern feeling had changed and war was in the 
land. 

*The words on the pedestal of the Frazee bust "The Federal 
Union, it must be preserved," were a careless misquotation. See 
History of Andrew Jackson by A. C. Buell, (Charles Scribner's Sons, 
New York, 1904) Vol. II, page 241, where will be found the full 
story of the Jefferson banquet and the language used. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 105 

Had Jackson lived a score of years longer, would his sen- 
timent have changed too? That of course cannot be knovi^n; 
he loved his country and he loved his native and adopted 
Southern States. Thousands who served bravely and honor- 
ably in the war between the states had, during Jackson's life- 
time and later, said that the Union must be preserved, and 
then fought to sever it. During the four years that brothers 
waged that fearful war, and hatred and vengeance routed love 
and peace, the solemn bust of "Old Hickory" stood in Court 
Square in Memphis, calmly facing the West, as though he 
would say that there lay much of the future greatness of his 
country when the bitter family quarrel should be over, but 
he looked out over the words: "The Federal Union, it must 
be preserved." It was preserved, but, oh! the cost! 

Municipal prosperity and interest gradually lessened and 
gave way under the terrible pressure of national turbulence. 
Worse and worse became the hatred between the North and the 
South, more and more did Northern abolitionists rant against 
slavery and denounce Southerners as tyrants, barbarians, etc., 
and more and more did Southern "fire-eaters" shout against 
intrusion and oppression and for secession and independence. 
Many Southern people, before antagonism between the 
sections became so rank, had advocated, planned, and some had 
worked to bring about a gradual emancipation whereby the 
slaves would be freed as they had been in other states and 
countries, and yet their owners not be left impoverished. The 
slave's condition compared more than favorably with that of 
other laborers of the world's various systems, and so the accusa- 
tion of universal cruelty practiced in the South was not 
calmly received. Slavery had been introduced into the United 
States by a former generation and had groivn to be part of 
the condition of Southern living, and, as a tumor, or other 
abhorrent excrescence that has been accumulating for years 
is not dissipated at once, so many thinkers North and South, 
notably Abraham Lincoln, advocated gradual emancipation. 

Memphis, in the heart of the cotton-belt, contained natur- 
ally all ' ' Southern institutions," and no other Southern city was 
in more danger from the unsettled state of affairs than she. 



106 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Here came also abolition agitators and occasionally Memphis 
sent some such offender from her precincts with instructions 
not to return on penalty of harsher treatment for a second 
offense. It was common at that time for fanatical members of 
the abolition brotherhood to insinuate themselves into Southern 
homes and then at any opportunity presented, — usually at 
night after the family slept, — try to incite the negroes to 
uprisings against their owners, or persuade them to run away. 

In October of 1859 all former deeds of abolitionists were 
east into shadow by the bold daring of one in Virginia, John 
Brown. This fanatical old man made a raid on Harper's Ferry 
and his boldness, though failing in its aim, shook the whole 
country, intensifying bitterness and making the Mason and 
Dixon line one of live electric wires. 

This impracticable old man, after committing and suffering 
from much bloodshed in Kansas, where he had obtained the 
sobriquet of "Ossawottamie Brown," from his deeds com- 
mitted at the place of that name, moved to Harper's Ferry, 
Virginia. He laid a deep plot to incite the negroes to insur- 
rection, and had sent to him there at intervals boxes of pikes 
made expressly for arming the slaves. He also had boxes of 
guns, ammunition, blankets and other army equipment sent 
to Harper's Ferry, ostensibly as household goods. He posed 
as a farmer wishing to locate, and as a geologist interested in 
the minerals of that locality. He carried out this deception 
by often wandering about the mountains with hammer and 
chisel. He lived in that way some time, receiving support from 
abolition friends in New England and elsewhere, and had 
some confederates with him, men who had been making a 
business of mingling with the people and learning the neigh- 
borhood. Brown thought that if the negroes were once 
aroused and armed they would make war on their owners, sub- 
due the whites and so be free. After freeing the slaves in 
this state he hoped to push his warfare on and on, gathering 
recruits as he went, until the slaves should all be freed. By 
the 16th of October he must have felt sure of his readiness 
for the remarkable mode of warfare contemplated, for on the 
morning of that day, before dawn, he seized the United States 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 107 

arsenal with part of his force of twenty-two men, having sent 
some of them to different parts of the neighborhood to get 
slaves and take some influential wiiite men prisoners, that he 
might use them as hostages. Several men were killed by the 
insurgents near the arsenal, one of them a free negro. When 
daylight came and an understanding of his actions dawned 
on the people, militia was called out and the whole surround- 
ing country was aroused. Brown kept his captives imprisoned 
and armed the negroes with pikes with instructions to use the 
game for their defense, but the slaves for whose benefit all 
these plans had beea laid, were not in the least enthusiastic, 
most of them refusing to do any fighting or even arm them- 
selves. It was afterward noted that not a single slave rallied 
to the old man's cause and the chief object of those he had 
brought to the arsenal seemed to be to get back to their homes, 
some of them even running away for that purpose. 

The engine house was used as a prison for the captives and 
for a fort, which Brown refused to surrender when ordered 
to do so, barricading the doors and shooting into the troops 
surrounding the arsenal at intervals during the day. Colonel 
Robert E. Lee was sent from Washington with a batallion, but 
he did not reach Harper's Ferry until evening. Nothing was 
accomplished that night and the people in the engine house 
spent a very uncomfortable time, but at daylight of the next 
day Colonel Lee demanded the surrender of the insurgents. 
Brown refused and the marines selected by Colonel Lee, under 
their commander, Lieutenant S. G. Green, stormed the engine- 
house and after several lives had been lost, among them 
Brown's son, and the old man himself badly wounded, the 
insurgents were captured. They were first turned over to the 
authorities at Washington to be tried for seizing a Federal 
arsenal and resisting Federal troops, but Virginia demanded 
the disturbers as her prisoners for killing some of her citizens 
and trying to incite insurrection among the slaves, and they 
were surrendered to her. 

John Brown's raid was a failure that ended in the hang- 
ing of the leader and several of his confederates at Charleston, 



108 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Virginia, after a trial in which they were defended by Northern 
attorneys. 

Brown's wife was allowed to visit him in Charleston where 
she was courteously received and treated during her stay. She 
was with her husband before his death and, accompanied by 
some abolition friends who had gone with her to Virginia, 
took the body to North Elba, New York, the trip, after cross- 
ing the Mason and Dixon line being one of ovation all the way. 

The feeling engendered by Brown's bold attempt did 
not die with him on the scaffold. Enmity that had existed 
between the North and South before was after this occurrence 
intensified to an alarming degree. The North in general 
looked upon Brown as a martyr and some enthusiasts placed 
his scaffold by the cross of Christ in importance, while at the 
South and in Memphis he was considered an incendiary of the 
most vicious sort and was as much abhorred as he was adored 
in the North. All Northern strangers were looked upon with 
suspicion and the South was never sure of her safety from 
invasion while abolitionists in the North increased and contin- 
ued to incite the people with assertions of the barbarisms of 
the South. 

The decade of the sixties brought very different results 
from anything of which the builders of the fifties had dreamed. 
Municipal affairs had been poorly managed in Memphis and 
people were dissatisfied and becoming indignant. In 1860 the 
taxable wealth of Memphis had increased to $21,500,000, 
having been only $4,600,000 ten years previous, and yet citi- 
zens contended that it was impossible to see where the city 
was being benefitted. The men in office were accused of 
bungling in every way, especially in not using the city's 
money to the best advantage. These men, said to be good 
managers in their own affairs, seemed incapable of managing 
the affairs of the city and were getting her deeper into debt 
all the time. The population of this year, as shown by the 
United States census, had increased to 22,643, more than 
double the census of 1850. 

Streets were in bad condition, street lights unsatisfactory 
and the fire department was so poorly managed that much 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 109 

property was thought to be unnecessarily burned. In a single 
fire $109,000 worth of property had been destroyed, the fire 
service not having been adequate. 

The first fire brigade of Memphis had been composed of 
volunteer citizens with pails of water. As Memphis grew this 
primitive mode of putting out fires was insufficient, but the 
town was small and money not plentiful enough to buy a fire- 
engine. But the subject was frequently discussed ; some of the 
citizens wanted a tax for the purpose of having a fire depart- 
ment, and others said the proprietors ought to furnish it. The 
discussions and occasional losses by fire continued until 1'830, 
when a second-hand engine was purchased in Cincinnati by 
George Aldred, at the time acting as an alderman of Memphis. 
The bringing of this small instrument to Memphis was quite 
an event, though some pranks were played by making it 
"squirt" muddy water on people and in buildings, which 
actions did not add to the respectability of the men who took 
it from the river up the bluffs. On all public occasions there 
are some people who will carry their enthusiasm to the point 
of license. 

James D. Davis says that the "Little Vigor," as the new 
engine was named, was not "over three feet high, worked by 
two long cranks extending from her sides and capable of fur- 
nishing room for eight men, by which power she could throw 
water over the tallest house on the bluff, and although some- 
what defaced, seemed very substantial, and made quite a 
handsome appearance, while the general opinion seemed to be 
that she was just the thing we needed." 

Firemen continued to be volunteers but they had a better 
method for extinguishing the flames. This was the only safe- 
guard from fires until 1838, when the "Deluge," a larger and 
better engine was bought by the city authorities, and the still 
volunteer servers of the public hurried from their business or 
beds at sound of the fire alarm, to the engine-house, where they 
as quickly as possible got the engine and apparatus, rushed 
to the scene of conflagration, themselves hauling the engine, 
and proceeded to throw the stream of water upon the flames. 

As Memphis grew there were of course more and larger 



110 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

buildings, closer together, and this fire service became as ineffi- 
cient as the old bucket brigade had been in earlier years. Oc- 
casional destructive fires caused the people to cry for an up- 
to-date fire department and by the latter part of the fifties 
this cry was loud, especially after the $100,000 loss above 
mentioned. So in January of 1860 the board of mayor and 
aldermen organized a paid fire department and ordered steam 
fire-engines, despite the fact that the city was deeply in debt. 
By November of this year the city's debts amounted to 
$596,742, besides railroad stock subscriptions for which she 
was responsible. A comptroller had been considered for some 
time so in November of 1860 one was appointed and he, the 
last of the year, began to investigate financial affairs. 



-f. CHAPTER VI 



Mutterings of the Coming Civil War. Secession Activities in 
Memphis. Great Torch Light Processions of the Unionists 
and Secessionists. Secession Defeated at the Polls. Reso- 
lutions of the Secessionists. The Leaders of the Disunion 
Party. The Call of Mr. Lincoln for Troops. Secession of 
Memphis from State. Tennessee Finally Secedes. The 
Vote in Memphis. Preparations for War. The Southern 
Mothers. 



AS MONTHS advanced bitterness between the North and 
South increased to such an extent that interest in 
private and municipal affairs was almost entirely 
supplanted by the absorbing questions of Union and Secession, 
the organizing of military companies, etc. The Union spirit 
which had been so strong a few years before in Memphis was 
giving place to the spirit of Southern independence and men 
who had formerly been strong for Union were making speeches 
for Secession. 

Secessionists and Unionists vied in speeches and other 
demonstrations and on many nights both forces held forth in 
different parts of the city. Business came almost to a stand- 
still and the absorbing theme of everybody's thoughts was 
"Secession" or "Union." Influential men on both sides were 
invited to address the masses and many able speeches were 
made. 

At a secession meeting held in January, 1861, the follow- 
ing resolutions were drawn up by the committee appointed 
for the purpose : 

"Whereas, all attempts to settle the question of slavery 
have been rejected by the Black Republicans during the present 
session of Congress, and, whereas, we despair of obtaining our 
rights in the Union, therefore be it 



112 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

''Resolved, That the convention of the people of Ten- 
nessee, to assemble on the 25th of February, should, immedi- 
ately after its organization, prepare to pass an ordinance 
declaring the State of Tennessee no longer a part of the United 
States of America, and thereafter take immediate action for 
the formation of a confederacy with our Southern sisters. 

'' Resolved, That ours is a government deriving its just 
powers from the consent of the people governed and it was 
never contemplated that its laws should be enforced or its 
institutions maintained by standing armies ; and the doctrine 
of coercion, by which a seceding state, if conquered, would 
become a subjugated province, is wholly repugnant to the spirit 
of the Federal compact, and meets our unqualified disappro- 
bation. 

'^ Resolved, That we most heartily and earnestly depre- 
cate any plan which looks to a union of the border slave and 
non-slaveholding states for the formation of a central confed- 
eracy, and that we regard the only true position for Tennessee 
to occupy is in a Southern confederacy, which shall have for 
its bond of union the present federal compact. ' '* 

When the committee that formed these resolutions returned 
to the crowded hall the resolutions were read and adopted 
unanimously, a circumstance that would have been improbable 
a month earlier and impossible six months before. This com- 
mittee comprised M. C. Galloway, Andrew Taylor, N. B. Forrest 
and John W. Somerville, at least two of these men having been 
formerly in favor of adhering to the Union. 

Lincoln's election was a terrible shock to the South, as he 
was head of the Republican party and that party had been 
formed for the purpose of opposing the South and her insti- 
tutions. 

During the campaign of 1860, the Republican party, which 
had been considered insignificant in the beginning, had made 
rapid strides and ended by electing its first president. This 
was taken by the South as a challenge and she accepted it. 

Southern States began to secede in February of 1861, 
and delegates from the seceded States met at Montgomery, 

♦Memphis Appeal of Sunday, January 27, 1861. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 113 

Alabama, to organize a provincial government. Before 
the Republican President was inaugurated Jefferson Davis 
had been elected by the Southern Convention and installed 
into office as President of the new Confederate States 
of America. This installation took place on the 18th of Feb- 
ruary. Alexander H. Stephens was elected Vice-President 
and Mr. Davis selected his cabinet. A constitution was modeled 
on that of the United States, a few changes being made to 
suit the conditions of the new Confederacy. 

Of course all this made the South and especially Memphis, 
a troubled hive and people were in a frenzy of excitement, 
enthusiasm and expectation. 

The city was much interested in the daily proceedings of 
the new Government at Montgomery and many Memphis men 
and women went to attend the inauguration of Jefferson 
Davis and Alexander H. Stephens. Both these men had been 
strong advocates for the preservation of the Union but upon 
the secession of their respective states they had cast their lots 
with their homes. When the secession of Mississippi was pend- 
ing, Jefferson Davis had plead before the United States Senate 
for a compromise to arrest the proceedings, had acknowledged 
himself ready to vote for the Crittenden Resolution and to 
stand by the Union ; but when all hope for a compromise was 
over and Mississippi joined the Confederacy he withdrew from 
the United States Senate, making upon that occasion a calm 
and logical speech justifying his action. 

February 6, 1861, the Unionists of Memphis had a big 
street demonstration, to witness which thousands of Memphis 
people gathered. Many stores and residences were brilliantly 
lighted and large and small United States flags floated all 
along the line of the torch-light procession. This procession 
was led by a double file of torch-bearers and following them 
was a band playing "My Country 'Tis of Thee." Then came 
transparaneies with mottoes for the Union and another band 
played "Star Spangled Banner." More transparaneies fol- 
lowed and torch-bearers came, bearing flags as well as torches. 
One flag was so large that it took several bearers to keep it 
upright. 



114 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Some of the mottoes to be seen were: "Union is good for 
the Constitution." "Our Rights in the Union." "Tennessee's 
Strength is in Union." "Secession is Treason." "Don't Run 
Away from your Independence." "Reason and Compromise." 
"United We Stand, Divided We Fall." There were many 
others, as well as cartoons bearing on subjects of the time. 

One feature of this procession was a large skiff fitted up 
as a brig and profusely decorated with flags and lights. Car- 
riages held business and professional men who bowed and 
waved their loyalty as they rode along. 

Two nights after this manifestation the Secessionists had 
a parade and demonstration even greater than that of the 
Unionists had been. Their participators were, said the Appeal, 
"from the laborer and mechanic to the merchant and capital- 
ist." The illuminations of this night were elaborate, gas-jets 
in many places formed into beautiful designs, torches flaring, 
spitting and spilling in all directions, candles doing their 
modest part behind window-panes and huge bonfies roaring 
at street-crossings. 

This night's parade was headed by six decorated marshals 
on spirited horses. Following them were many torch-bearers; 
big transparencies with secession mottoes; an immense 
decorated skiff ; color draped omnibuses filled with people, one 
of these containing seven young girls dressed to represent the 
seceded States; a train of carriages bearing ladies with flags 
and behind them was a long line of horsemen riding in column 
of twos. A band played "Dixie," an air then becoming popu- 
lar, and was wildly greeted. The Star of the West was rep- 
resented ; "Bleeding Kansas" was pictured and South Carolina 
was represented by a palmetto flag and the words: "Southern 
Independence;" and there were many devices on wheels to 
attract the throng gathered along the streets. 

A few of the mottoes used in this procession and on the 
store-fronts, were: "We have exhausted argument, we now 
stand by our arms." "A United South will Prevent Civil War." 
"Secession our Only Remedy." "Anti-Coercion." "Southern 
Rights and Southern Honor before Union." "Appeal, Ava- 
lanche and Enquirer all go for Secession." "People's Candi- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 115 

dates for the Convention : Marcus J. Wright, Ilumphery R. 
Bate, Solon Borland and D. M. Currin." "Vote Tomorrow 
for White Man's Rights." 

But though Tennessee was much divided in her sentiment 
she was only slowly growing in the spirit of secession. At the 
election in this state, held February 9, 1861, to pass upon 
the question of secession and to determine the question of 
"Convention" or "No Convention" for that purpose, the 
convention was defeated by a vote of 91,803 to 24,749, and in 
Memphis, where secession had seemed assured, a Union candi- 
date for the State Convention was elected by a majority of 
722 votes. The Unionists voted down the convention while 
electing delegates to represent them in such convention. 

This defeat was a sore surprise and disappointment to 
the Secessionists but failure in this instance did not dampen 
their ardor. Meetings and speakings continued and Memphis 
papers had such daily announcements as "Secession Meeting 
of Merchants and Business Men." "Mechanics and Working- 
men's Southern Rights Association." "The Irish Against 
Coercion." "Mass Meeting of German Adopted Citizens." 
"French Citizens Meet to Down Foreign Dominion in their 
Adopted Country." 

Many citizens wanted Memphis to have an independent 
ballot for secession and then, if the vote was in favor of seces- 
sion, have the city made part of Mississippi, that she might 
belong to the Confederacy, whatever the state did. Trade had 
given place to the excitement of the time. Local affairs held 
little interest for the people, even so important an affair 
as the opening of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, which made 
an important connecting line, claiming only a lukewarm inter- 
est, says Colonel Keating, from people who had been all but 
wild over such improvements before. 

The Secessionists held a great mass meeting February 
13, 1861, when the following resolutions were passed and 
signed. As this was the leadership of the revolutionary party 
in Memphis which ultimately brought about secession in Ten- 
nessee and embraces many prominent names of that and a 



IK) History of Memphis , Tennessee. 

l.Mlor day, \\w rt^sohilicMis niid sonio of llio nninos ;ir<> here 
fjiven : 

"MEMPHIS SECP]SSION DIRECTORY. 
For 18(>1. 

"Tlio followiuij wns copied Ironi Iho i\lotnj>his Weekly 
Avalanche, of b\'bruary 2(5, 18(>1. 

"IMie followioj; is a complete copy of tli(> names sigued to 
to aecem[>anyinir rt^solulimis wliicli were adc^i^led at a meetinj? 
held at Odd Fellow's Hall, on Ihe 13lh day of February, 1861: 

"Resolved, That those who, on the 9th of this month, cast 
their votes in favor of the Seeessi()n ticket in the State of Ten- 
uesvsee, herel)y ratify and coulirm, in their fidl length and 
breadth, the principles and opinions to which the Secession party 
stood pledged in the late canvass. 

""Resolved, That having perfect conruleuee in the judgment 
and })atrietism of the citizens of Tennessee, and believing that 
a vast majority thereof an> unalterably opposed to a submission 
to, and union with, an ine(>miug administration, elected by a 
sectional majority, whosi> success was based upon a platform 
(ItMiyiug the slave states an ecpial right and just protection to 
property gu;>rauteed by our Constitutien ; and that the honor 
and interest, and safety of Tennessee, denumd that she should 
not separ.'ite fn^n lun* sister slave-holding States, we do hereby 
pledge ourselves to the citizens of Tennessee and to the whole 
Sduth, that we will not submit to any other than the rights 
diMuaudi^l l\v tlu^ seceding st;ites. 

Resolved. That tlei^hnnng the result of the recent election 
ui this state, and believing that very many of our citizens who, 
by their vote, contributed to that result, are as fully imbued wdth 
patriotic pride and devotion to the rights of the South, as those 
who dilTered with then\ as to the best mode of vindicating the 
same, we cordially request ;ill such and particularly all those 
whose votes on the !)th instant pledged them to sustain the Seces- 
sion party to enroll their names on the tables of the secretaries of 
this meeting, to the end that no encouragement to Northern 
aggression, and no concession of Soutliern rights c.-in be inferred 
from the result of the recent canvass. 

"'Resolved. That we believe that when eur Tnion friends 
of T(Muu>ss(H\ wlu-isi^ tarilv action we reixrel. shall be convinced 



Hinlory of Memphin, TenneHsee. 



117 



(fj.'it, their rit^tjt,H arid t,fi<; Hiii:r<:<lnfKri ot" Hluvcry, will not \)i: n;C0K- 
nized by the non-Mlavfiholflinj/ States, or ttie i^oli'y of the next 
aflrriinist ration, we trunt that they will make k'""J their pledf^es 
iin<\ iinile with us in a '•or'lial effort, to plaee TenneHwee in a 
propr'r HJtuation in a Sontfiirn f 'orirc'l(:r;i'',y. 

" licsolvf'd, That all rjpinioriH in favor of any foereion to 
\)c iiHr-fJ again.st any poHion of the .South, whether the same eonie 
from Abe Lincoln, hiH f'l;i' I- Kepublican cohortH, or elsewhere, 
reee.ive, our on mitigated '■oril<rri[)t nri'l tlie defianee of f;very true 
Soutlirfifi. 

"We, the un'Jer;,ii/ri<'l citizen.s of Mem[>hiH, rnoKt heartily 
endorwe the nrHolutjons afiove: 
J. W. Armstrong, ('' M. Anderson, 
I.', li. lirow, J. W. S. iJrowne, 

W. F. lioyle, 

(' If. l-JridgeH, 

•I. W. Frazer, 

T. I>. Pamsworth , 

K. M. I''iourrioy, 

J. II. ()()(>(\\)nr, 

\'\ M. Leath, 

B, M. Massey, 

-M. ATagevny, 

(',. A. Newton, 

•I'-liu (L Pittman, 
W. G. Richardson, Oe.orge K. Redford, Thos. liandolfih, 
W. Speckernagle, J. Speckemagle, S. C, Snyder, 

A. Julius Taylor, 

S. C. Toof, 

.1. J. Williams, 

fy. L. Williamson, 

Koht. Wormly, 

<','has. W. Quinn, 
and ahout eight huri'Ired other Memphis names, all of which 
can be seen on the orif.'iri;il paper, ftuhlinhed in 1801. 

Such was the .state of feeling in Memphis — one of unrest, 
uncertainty and almost revolution. Military companies wer« 



.r. IF. Hotto, 
W. S. lirooks, 
\). (Jaldwell, 
TT. Ferguson, 
T. .f. I'^innie, 
l>. I''. Ooodyear, 
T. 11. l;0gWf>0fl, 

II. 0. Lewis, 
W. IT. Malonc, 
a. McFarland, 
l'>. J. Olmsted, 



If. 11. Taylor, 
K. Tifus, 
Hugh Tate, 
W. B. Williams, 
M. J. Wright, 
Jas. Young, 



T .f, Allen, 
R. D. Baugh, 
W. C, Bryan, 
F. 0. Capers, 
M. A. Freeman, 
T. A. Fisher, 
f'\ M. Gail or, 
I'. Graham, 
A. H. Lake, 
A. I>. Morrison, 
W. W. .McLemore, 
.1. TT. Oliver, 
I'.. K. I'lill'o, 



Jas. T. Titus, 
A. G. Treadwell, 
J. \). Williams, 
S. A. Wills, 
II. C. Young, 
S. S. Clark, 



118 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

organizing, as war seemed inevitable, especially after Fort Sum- 
ter was taken at Charleston, which event threw people all over 
the South and North into a fever of disquiet and expectation. 

Ammunition, fire-arms and other army equipments were 
being collected in the Bluff City and by April 28, 1861, Mr. 
W. G. Ford secured from Louisiana a battery of thirty-two 
pound guns, three thousand Mississippi rifles and five hundred 
thousand cartridges. 

On April 10, 1861, the steamer H. R. W. Hill arrived at 
Memphis and her captain, who had hoisted a Confederate flag 
on his yawl while in St. Louis and had been rudely handled 
for his daring, was received by a throng of people at the 
Memphis bluff. He was saluted by many rounds of cannon and 
presented with a handsome Confederate flag. 

On April 15th President Lincoln had called upon the 
states for 75,000 volunteers for three months' service, de- 
manding that each state furnish its quota. Tennessee, not 
having seceded, w^as required to furnish 2,000 of these soldiers, 
but the spirit of Tennessee had undergone such severe tests 
during the past few weeks that the majority of her inhabitants 
felt indignant at being demanded to help coerce the South, 
even though the state was still in the Union. Governor Harris 
sent answer to Washington, "Tennessee will not furnish a 
single man for coercion, but 50,000, if necessary, for the 
defense of our rights and those of our Southern brethren." 

This response accorded with the general sentiment of the 
people and was received with wild enthusiasm in Memphis. 
The citizens had a mass meeting in the Exchange Building 
to settle the question of secession, where it was unanimously 
resolved that if Tennessee should remain in the Union Memphis 
would secede from the state and give herself to Mississippi. 
Speeches were plentiful and fiery at this meeting, in which 
many men declared themselves turned from Unionists to Seces- 
sionists. The sentiment of these was expressed by Mr. J. G. 
Holland when he said, "I was a Union man up to two and a 
half o'clock p. m. today — an ardent and zealous one, — but 
now I will raise my voice for the Union of the South." 

Col. R. F. Looney, a former Union man, responded to a 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 119 

call for a speech in which he said, ''I am forced now, as a 
true Southern man, to repudiate all allegiance to the Lincoln 
government and henceforth raise my cry for resistance against 
despotism or coercion for the Southern Confederacy." 

Major Bartlett advocated establishing a battery on the 
bluff for the city's defense, which proposition was met with 
enthusiasm. One speaker referred to Jefferson Davis as "the 
chivalric leader of the Southern forces," and the walls shook 
from thunders of applause. 

Mr. Hill of Illinois said, "I pledge the people of Southern 
Illinois to oppose the war scheme of the abolition despot and 
assist in driving back his minions from the crusade of Southern 
subjugation," and he expressed the feeling of many Northern- 
ers living in the South at that time. 

A committee was appointed at this meeting to inform 
President Davis ''That the city of Memphis has seceded from 
the late United States forever — and that she places herself 
under the government of the Confederate States and will 
respond to any call for aid from him." There was great 
enthusiasm on the reading of this resolution, three thousand 
men making a roar that sent its thunder far and lasted many 
minutes. 

The call of the Northern President for 75,000 soldiers 
caused the Southern President to give a counter call for 35,000 
volunteers, and the response to this later call was quite as 
tempestuous as that at Washington, and Montgomery became 
another seething camp of soldiers, many more than the 
required 35,000 pouring in from all the Southern States. 

President Lincoln's demand for troops was followed a 
few days later by a proclamation which ordered the blockade 
of Southern ports and suspended the writ of habeas corpus, 
This added gunpowder to the flames and caused many more 
Unionists to turn to the Southern cause. Numbers of soldiers 
and officers left the United States army and one day twenty 
men left the ranks at Washington to go to Montgomery and 
enlist there. A recorder said that this score made an aggre- 
gate of two hundred and eighty army recruits for the Southern 
government from the Federal capital up to that date. Many 



120 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

people throughout the Northern States held to state rights 
and there were public speeches and Northern editorials 
denouncing the President's action as tyrannical and beyond 
the power of that officer. Some preachers in Northern pulpits 
omitted their usual prayer for the President of the United 
States, which caused a sensation among church-goers that 
ended in divisions of the different orthodox churches. 

Of course all this stir made it necessary for the slave 
states to decide whether or not they should remain in the 
Union and within the next two months several states withdrew 
from the United States and joined the Southern Confederacy. 
Virginia seceded April seventeenth and on the twenty-third 
Robert E. Lee, who had refused the tender of Commander-in- 
Chief of the Federal forces, and entered the cause of his birth- 
land, was assigned to the command of the Virginia troops. 
Arkansas withdrew May 6, and North Carolina May 20. 

On June 8, Tennessee cast her last vote on secession and 
this time the opinions of her voters had undergone serious 
change since the time of her previous vote. Then, the majority 
had been in favor of remaining in the Union and now the vote 
of the people stood 108,418 for separation and 53,336 against.* 
In Memphis only five votes were cast against secesssion. As 
the figures for the State vote show, there still remained many 
Unionists in the state, and perhaps it will not be amiss to pre- 
cede events by stating that 37,000 of Tennessee's sons joined 
the Union army, most of these being from East Tennessee, and 
100,000 the Confederate Army, many of these also from the 
eastern part of the state. 

Memphis, recognized as a strong strategic point, by June 
had become a military center and the headquarters of Major- 
General Pillow, commander of the Army of Tennessee. By 
Kentucky remaining neutral it was evident that this state 
would be one of the fields of action and that it was necessary 
to prepare for defense. Tennessee was poorly equipped for 
war but her people set to work to do what they could. 
Bureaus of military supplies were established and armories 
were created. As many of the skilled mechanics had fled 

*Number afterward declared by the Secretary of State. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 121 

north at war's certain approach, Southern men and women 
took up their work and soon doctors, lawyers, mechanics, 
planters, merchants and women of many classes of society were 
trained in the gun-making craft, easting cannon and manu- 
facturing percussion caps, powder and balls. Colonel Keating 
says : ' ' Merchants, planters, doctors and lawyers found them- 
selves possessed of forces hitherto latent, which were speedily 
turned to account, and the result was not only the formation 
of depots of supply, but the partial equipment of the hurriedly 
improvised army which a suddenly precipitated revolution had 
called forth." 

In August the Confederate Congress ordered two gun- 
boats built for the defense of Memphis, appropriating $125,000 
for the purpose. 

Memphis received news of the Battle of Manassas July 
21, the day of the battle, and for several days particulars con- 
tinued to come in. The victory caused great rejoicing in the 
city and many Memphians said, "I told you the North could 
not fight and that we would soon make them run." A street 
in Memphis was named Manassas, as a memorial of that vic- 
tory, and the people were still enthusiastic over the conquest, 
when news came of another victory at Belmont. More demon- 
strations and rejoicings were indulged in and Southern people 
were now convinced that the "Yankees can never whip." They 
read the papers eagerly to learn how their soldiers under 
Generals Cheatham, Polk and Pillow drove Grant's men to 
their boats in the greatest confusion, and how the Federals 
hastily retreated to Cairo, Illinois, but these rejoicings were 
greatly reduced by the sad letters which followed, telling of 
the dead and wounded. Boats were sent up from Memphis 
and returned loaded with wounded men who were immediately 
taken to the hospital of the "Southern Mothers" in the Irving 
Block, to a Catholic hospital conducted by the Sisters of St. 
Agnes Academy and to many homes. Actual contact with the 
suffering, dying and dead took away much of war's glory for 
our women who attended the unfortunate soldiers day and 
night. 

Thankful for the victories that the South had won and 



122 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

realizing that more carnage was to come, President Davis pro- 
claimed November 15th a day of humiliation, prayer and 
fasting, and services were held in churches in Memphis and 
throughout the Southland. 

More calls were made by the Confederate States for 
volunteers and each state's call received ready response, but 
by the close of 1861 those in authority realized that their 
reserve supply of men had grown small and one-third of those 
enlisted were unarmed, while the North had tens of thousands 
in reserve and almost the world to call upon, besides a power- 
ful navy and unlimited supplies of war equipment. Thus, even 
so early in the war the South stood frightfully exposed and 
almost tottering, but she did not know it. 

The new Confederate States of America, with eleven states 
and a population of 9,000,000, was opposed by twenty-three 
states with a population of 22,000,000. But the precipitation 
had come and the South thought herself strong enough to 
resist any power. 

Memphis, on account of her situation, became a depend- 
ence of the Southern and a desire of the Northern country. 
She was a military center and furnished many soldiers and 
supplies to the cause her state had espoused. Her officials, 
ministers, and citizens in general became almost entirely 
absorbed in the country's trouble at the expense of private 
and civic affairs. Many of the churches took up subscriptions 
for the Confederate Treasury and this letter to one of the said 
churches shows the gratitude felt at these efforts : 
"Treasury Department, C. S. A., 

Richmond, June 19, 1861. 
''I. B. Kirkland, Esq., Memphis, Tenn. 

"Sir: — This Department acknowledges with pleasure the 
receipt of your letter of the 15th inst., inclosing $250, and more 
to follow, a portion of the amount subscribed to the Treasury 
of the Confederate States by the congregation of the Second 
Presbyterian Church of Memphis. 

"The sympathy of the Christian denominations of our 
country is highly appreciated by the Government which 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 123 

acknowledges its dependence for success upon the 'ruler of 
nations. ' 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
C. G. MEMMINGER, 

Secretary of the Treasury." 

As men neglected business, so women forgot home duties 
in their work for the army and wounded. At a meeting of the 
Southern Mothers Association June 24, 1861, some of their 
work was reported in the minutes of the previous week, as 
follows : 

"On Monday afternoon the called meeting of the secretary 
assembled, about twenty being present. Mrs. S. C. Law, 
president, took the chair, and the secretary, who had been 
absent for several meetings on account of family affliction, 
resumed her duties. The meeting being called to order, the 
.secretary read the minutes of the previous two meetings. The 
secretary stated that Thos. Gallagher, of the Crockett Rangers 
now in camp at Randolph, had died at the house of one of the 
members, J. N. Patrick. He accidentally received a wound in 
camp and was taken by a comrade to the house of Mrs. Magevney, 
on Union Street. Moved by his captain to the house of his 
mother, where he died. He was buried in Elmwood Cemetery, 
Mr. Flaherty furnishing, without charge, coffin and hearse, and 
the 'Mothers' who had nursed him attended to the grave. 

"The President reported that a telegram had been received 
by surgeon general of Tennessee that an Arkansas regiment. 
Colonel Hindman, would return from Virginia with thirty sick. 
The surgeon requested the society to receive them. Hurried 
preparations were made about ten o 'clock at night and the meet- 
ing informed that the men were then at the rooms, receiving 
every care from visiting and standing committees and our 
noble and most indefatigable surgeon Dr. G. W. Curry, to whom 
the ladies are under many obligations for disinterested and 
efficient service and excellent advice. The standing committee 
consisted of Mrs. Law, Mrs. Shanks, Mrs. Greenlaw and Mrs. 
Vernon and was reinforced by a visiting committee for the 
week consisting of Mrs. Doyle, Mrs. Kirk and Mrs. Gondar. A 



124 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

committee of two ladies for each day was appointed to send 
food prepared to the rooms. 

"A call was made through the papers for increased contri- 
butions, which was promptly responded to by donations of 
money, furniture, food and other necessaries. The meeting 
adjourned to meet every week during the summer, at the resi- 
dence of the secretary." 

The following report was read : 

"Since fitting up rooms seventy-two soldiers have been 
received into them, receiving the best medical attention and 
kindest and most efficient nursing. Seventeen have been dis- 
charged, one died and buried by the Mothers. Eighteen removed 
from rooms to private homes* * * Conduct of men has been, with- 
out exception, manifestation of gratitude for services and high 
appreciation of motives of those engaged in the work. A large 
number of ladies relieve each other day by day in nursing and 
arrangements are rapidly approaching the perfection of system 
to which their officers hope to attain. Ladies in the country can 
aid by sending chickens, fresh meat, fruit, milk and butter to 
the rooms. Dr. Erskine has given efficient attention to the sick 
in the house of the secretary. Drs. Hopson and Shanks have 
also offered to attend the sick at the houses of some of their 
patrons. The military board have given medicine. Both ice 
companies large quantities of ice. The gas company is giving 
gas and putting up fixtures. Many merchants have contributed 
money and goods. Mr. W. G. Proudfit authorized the President 
to draw upon him to any amount, and the use of rooms is the 
donation of Messrs. Greenlaw. All these things show that the 
great heart of Memphis is in the work, and soldiers brought here 
may rely on the Mothers for attention. ' ' 

This report partly shows where the "great heart of Mem- 
phis" was throbbing, so is it any wonder that municipal affairs 
were cast into the background and that such matters became 
more and more tangled? 

The board of mayor and aldermen continued to have meet- 
ings but did little work and were still under opprobrium for 
poorly managed city affairs. It is recorded that at a meeting 
of the board June 6, 1861, one of the aldermen objected to 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 125 

charges to the city of whips, gold pens, silver pencil-cases and 
pocket-knives, and at this same meeting it was shown that the 
chain-gang cost IMemphis more than it was worth to city work. 
On the 13th of this month the board could not meet the first 
draft of $1,000, of the $75,000 that had been voted for the 
city's defenses, but by the 19th they paid this first draft, which 
was needed to meet the expenses of the miners and sappers who 
had been employed on the fortifications. At this same time 
they refused to pay $262.00 for sixty-four tent-spikes which had 
been made by order of the mayor at the request of the military 
board. 

On July 3 of this year John Park was sworn in as mayor 
and three days later the city council reduced school expenses 
$12,000, the school tax having been struck from the levy. 

In August Comptroller Lofland, who had been appointed 
the previous year to straighten out Memphis finances, gave his 
report, showing an excess of receipts over appropriations, which 
was said to be the first time in such a report in the history of 
Memphis, but two months later he reported an outstanding 
indebtedness of $307,000, for which no provision had been made. 
This year the board of mayor and aldermen reduced city prop- 
erty assessments fifteen per centum. 

Even this early in the war many people had become inpover- 
ished, so the mayor was authorized to distribute fifty dollars a 
week among the poor. In addition to this help different organ- 
izations of the city gave concerts and other entertainments for 
the benefit of widows and orphans of soldiers. 

Nearly all the voting population was in the army, so when, 
this summer, Isham G. Harris was elected Governor of Tennes- 
see, Memphis had only 731 votes for him, that being nearly the 
full extent of the vote cast. 



f CHAPTER VII 



Memphis Captured by the Federal Fleet. Exciting Scenes in 
the City. Memphis Under Military Law. Sherman in Com- 
mand. His Cruelty and Tyranny. Seizure of the Municipal 
Government by Military 'Commander. Close of the Civil 
War. Reconstruction Measures. Trouble with the Negroes. 
Great Riot in the City. The Freedman's Bureau. Brown- 
low's Militia Police. The Ku Klux Klan. Peace at Last. 
The City Begins to Grow Again. Trouble About Finances. 
Small Pox, Cholera and Yellow Fever Appear. 



.<«2^ Y 1862 the South realized that the war was a much more 
4|a serious matter than she had dreamed. When, in the 
'^^ beginning, she asserted that the North would not fight 
and the first victories seemed to confirm the assertion, she 
did not remember that her enemies were largely of the same 
Revolutionary stock as her own people and that failure to 
them only meant more determination to win. The Northern 
President called for more troops for three years' service and 
they came. 

The great plan was to reach the heart of the Confederate 
States and, as the closing in upon them went gradually on, 
Memphis saw her precarious position, especially after New 
Orleans was taken and the upper river defences fell. On came 
the Federal fleet down the river, few men and boats to impede 
its progress, until June 6, Memphis w^as reached. The battle 
of that day and the taking of Memphis by the Federals is told 
in another part of this work. 

After the new order of Affairs the IMemphis board of 
mayor and aldermen found little work to do and soon none 
at all. Military rule became the government of the city and 
Federal soldiers, well dressed and well provided for, remind- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 127 

ing Memphis people of her own scantily supplied soldiers, were to 
be seen on all sides. 

The little city that had so lately been aiding the Confeder- 
ate cause in every way she could, was now subjected to severe 
punishments for all such aid detected. But her spirit remained 
the same and the Federals, who had been told they would 
receive a warm welcome from the ''many subdued Unionists" 
in the Bluff City, found only "a dead city and a stiff-necked 
people," as one of them expressed it. 

After the river battle before Memphis and the victors had 
taken possession of the town, business houses were closed and 
the people kept aloof from the enemy. When a squad was sent 
to remove the Confederate flag from the mast on Front Row, 
the crowd refused to let it be done until two companies of 
marines were marched from one of the transports to the spot. 
Then, after a hot dispute of several minutes which threatened 
to be a riot, it was cut down amid hisses and execrations of 
the crowd and huzzahs for Jeff. Davis and the Confederacy.* 

A correspondent of the Cairo Gazette who came to Memphis 
to note the state of affairs, wrote: ''There has not been the 
slightest manifestation of Union feeling. The stores are all 
closed * * * * As yet the extraordinary Union welcome we 
were to receive has not been accorded." And later this same 
correspondent wrote: "In all Memphis there is only one 
flag to be seen, and that is the Union flag in front of a saloon. ' ' 
Later a Union flag was hoisted over the Union and Planters 
Bank. A telegram sent North June 11, had these words: "The 
Argus is still quite outspoken in its secession sympathy. The 
Avalanche is more guarded. ' ' The Appeal had moved to Grenada 
on the approach of the Federals, as told in another chapter. 

Soon, however, merchants from the North came and with 
them came provisions such as Southern people had not seen 
for many days. June 16, the postoffice, which had been closed, 
was reopened, but was very quiet at first. Later one hundred 
and thirty lock-boxes were engaged and one report gave 1,200 
letters as the number mailed. 

♦Memphis Appeal. 



128 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

On the twenty-sixth of June Colonel Slack, who had been 
placed in charge of Memphis by the Federal Government, gave 
his permission for an election to be held in Memphis for elect- 
ing municipal officers. The voters in this election were required 
to take the oath of allegiance to the United States. There were 
about seven hundred votes cast and John Park was reelected 
mayor. 

In July General Grant took command. He issued an 
order that expelled from the city all persons in any way 
connected with the Confederate civil or military government. 
He also expelled from office "all persons holding state, county 
or civic offices who claim allegiance to the said so-called Con- 
federate Government, and who have abandoned their families 
and gone South." 

Grant was succeeded by General Alvin P. Hovey and 
he added to Grant's order the requirement that "every man 
between the ages of eighteen and forty-five take the oath of 
allegiance, or leave the city." 

These measures forced many into the Confederate Army 
and created feelings of hatred toward the new Union rule. 

The Irving Block, which had been used as a Confederate 
hospital, was now converted into a prison, where Confederate 
soldiers or other persons caught aiding the Confederate Army 
were confined. 

When General Sherman came to control the city July 
21, he was so unreasonably displeased because Southerners did 
not take the Federal soldiers to their hearts and homes that 
he made harsh and strict laws, adhering to them even when 
it took cruelty to do so. The history of this officer's mode of 
warfare shows that he never stopped at cruelty. Writing of 
the feeling of the people here at that time he said: "It is idle 
to talk about Union men here : many want peace and fear 
war and its results; but all prefer a Southern, independent 
government, and are fighting or working for it." 

With all the patriotism he felt for his own cause he seemed 
utterly uncomprehensive of this feeling of Southerners, and 
resented it most vindictively. Again he wrote, after his 
arrival in Memphis: "When we first entered Memphis, July 



History of Memphis^ Tennessee. 129 

21, 1862, I found the place dead; no business doing, the stores 
closed, churches, schools and everything shut up. * * I caused all 
the stores to be opened, churches, schools, theatres and places 
of amusement, to be reestablished. * * * * I also restored the 
mayor (whose name was Parks) and the city government to 
the performance of their public functions and required them 
to maintain a good civic police." 

But General Sherman, and not the mayor, governed the 
city. On August 11, he wrote: "There is not a garrison in 
Tennessee where a man can go beyond the sight of a flagstaff 
without being shot or captured." 

Upon receiving numerous complaints from citizens and 
farmers of useless destruction of their property by his soldiers 
he replied in the Bulletin, September 21: "All officers and 
soldiers are to behave themselves orderly in quarters and on 
the march ; and whoever shall commit any waste of spoil, 
either in walks of trees, parks, warrens, fish-ponds, houses 
and gardens, cornfields, inclosures or meadows, or shall mali- 
ciously destroy any property whatever belonging to the inhabi- 
tants of the United States unless by order of the commander- 
in-chief of the armies of said United States, shall (besides such 
penalties as they are liable to by law) be punished according 
to the nature and degree of the offense, by the judgment of a 
general or regimental court-martial. * * * * When people forget 
their obligations to a government that made them respected 
among the nations of the earth and speak contemptuously of 
the flag which is the silent emblem of that country, I will not 
go out of my way to protect them or their property. I will 
punish the soldiers for trespass or waste, if adjudged by a 
court-martial, because they disobey orders ; but soldiers are 
men and citizens as well as soldiers, and should promptly 
resent any insult to their country, come from what quarter it 
may. * * * * Insult to a soldier does not justify pillage, but it 
takes from the officer the disposition he would otherwise feel 
to follow up the inquiry and punish the wrong-doers. 

"Again, armies in motion or stationary must commit 
some waste. Flankers must let down fences and cross flelds; 
and when an attack is contemplated or apprehended, a com- 



130 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

mand will naturally clear the ground of houses, fences and 
trees. This is waste, but it is the natural consequence of war, 
chargeable to those who caused the war. So in fortifying a 
place, dwelling houses must be taken, materials used, even 
wasted, and great damage done, which in the end may prove use- 
less. This, too, is an expense not chargeable to us, but to 
those who made the war; and generally war is destruction 
and nothing else." 

While in Memphis General Sherman was vigilant in keep- 
ing supplies of all kinds from passing out of the city to supply 
the Confederates, but sometimes the guard was eluded and 
articles necessary for the comfort of Confederate soldiers were 
taken through the lines. When these performances were 
detected the offenders were severely punished or, if the 
offender could not be found, military laws were made more 
rigid and often innocent people made to suffer. At one time 
Sherman ordered forty persons to leave Memphis because they 
had husbands or sons in the Confederate Army, or because they 
were "Rebel" sympathizers. Citizens who would not take 
the oath of allegiance to the United States were forced to 
pay rent for their own dwellings and stores. He also issued 
an order to the effect that heads of families nearest whose 
residences the dead body of a Federal soldier or a Unionist 
might be found, were to be held responsible and punished 
accordingly. 

When the relish of war had penetrated this stern soldier's 
nature it glutted him and he knew no quarter, no mercy, no 
pity for one in distress, if that one, man, woman or child, was 
an enemy. Such was the spirit of warfare with Indian and 
other savage natures long ago. One writer said of Sherman :* "I 
challenge the world to produce a person who will say that 
Sherman was ever touched by the pleadings of any woman, 
even though she asked for what belonged to her. Like the 
cobra, he plunged his deadly fangs into everything that moved 
within his reach." He expressed his own insatiableness in a 
letter to Brigadier-General J. A. Rawlings:t "I know that 

♦Captain James Dinkins. fSeptember 17, 1863. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 131 

at Washington I am incomprehensible, because at the outset 
of the war I would not go it blind and rush headlong into a 
war unprepared and with an utter ignorance of its extent and 
purpose. I was then considered unsound; and now that I 
insist on war pure and simple with no admixture of civil 
compromise, I am supposed vindictive. You remember that 
Polonius said to his son Laertes: 'Beware of entrance to a 
quarrel; but, being in, bear it that the opposed may beware 
of thee.' What is true of a single man is equally true of a 
nation. * * * * I would make this war as severe as possible, 
and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy. ' ' 

General Sherman used the slaves during his rule in Mem- 
phis for public work. He ordered that ' ' all negroes who apply 
for work shall be employed as laborers on the fortifications, 
and draw rations, clothing, and one pound of tobacco per 
month, but no wages will be allowed until the courts determine 
whether the negro is slave or free. Officers are forbidden to 
employ them as servants. The negroes employed as laborers 
will be allowed to return to their masters at the close of any 
week, but owners are not allowed to enter the lines in search 
of slaves. The post quartermaster is also authorized to employ 
negroes on the same conditions and, when necessary, to take 
them by force. Division quartermasters may employ negroes 
to drive teams and attend horses. Commanders of regiments 
may cause negroes to be employed as cooks and teamsters, 
not exceeding sixty-five for each regiment. In no case will 
any negro employed under the above conditions be permitted 
to wear arms or wear uniforms." 

The mud in Memphis at this period was terrible, the streets 
being almost impassible. An English press correspondent 
named William H. Russell, then touring the South, wrote of 
our unattractive city : 

"I wonder why they gave it such a name of old renown, 
This dreary, dismal, muddy, melancholy town?" 

A letter from a woman in January, 1863, written to a 
friend away from Memphis, describes the city as desolate in 
appearance and in reality. She wrote: "All residences 
between Tennessee and Shelby Streets from Vance out toward 



132 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Fort Pickering, have been destroyed, and their former site is 
now filled with fortifications and tents of the enemy." The 
trees and shrubbery were also destroyed in this district. 

The illness and fatality of Federal soldiers in Memphis 
was great in 1863 in the hospitals, 112 deaths being reported 
for the week ending March 14th. Many residences were 
demanded for hospitals and other uses of the soldiers, and the 
above mentioned lady writing to a friend, describes the situa- 
tion thus :* 

"An officer walks in and says: 'Your house is wanted for 

General 's headquarters. He gives you three days to 

move out and orders that no provisions or stores, or furniture 
be moved.' All slaves, carriages and horses are taken posses- 
sion of, and sentinels placed round the house to enforce 
obedience to orders. When the premises are no longer needed, 
the silver plate, queensware and best articles of furniture are 
packed up to grace the mansions of the plunderers in the North. 
In this way many have been stripped of everything. * * * * 
Books, pianos, music and many other things which these gen- 
erals and colonels have no use for, are destroyed. Books are 
used for waste paper and pianos are beaten to pieces with 
axes. * * * * Negro men are taken to work on fortifications 
and their families are crowded into uncomfortable and unwhol- 
some quarters to suffer and die of neglect and despondency. 
* * * * Few people have the possession and use of their own 
property. Nearly all the stores and warehouses are either used 
or rented by the Federal government, which makes no repairs 
and pays no taxes. * * * * Union meetings are frequently 
held, and sometimes processions, but nearly everybody engaged 
in them are newcomers and strangers." 

As 1863 advanced, Memphis was filled with Northern 
men and women and all of her conditions were so changed 
that she had little resemblance to the city of two years previ- 
ous. The newcomers received little social recognition from 
the native residents and some of them resented it, giving 
expression to their resentment in revengeful acts and words. 

*Appeal, March 26, 1863, published at Grenada. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 133 

Others, of course, of higher caliber, understood and even sym- 
pathized with the invaded, proud and impoverished Southern- 
ers. 

Some of these new residents petted negroes to such an 
extent that both the black and white Southerners would get 
disgusted. One negro woman said to her mistress, "Dose 
Yankees overdoes!"* It was common for a Federal soldier 
to step aside to give passage to a negro woman and then crowd 
by a white woman, even pushing her aside. It was also common 
for school girls and others to be forced to step into the mud 
to allow soldiers, afoot and on horses, to pass on the sidewalks, 
despite an order against riding on side-walks. But some of 
the newcomers were as extreme in their hatred of the negroes 
as was the other class in their sentimental love. Southerners 
were often engaged in taking up for their servants and defend- 
ing them against this unreasonable loathing. A Federal beat 
a negro man unmercifully and vowed he would give every 
other negro who crossed his path the same kind of treatment. 
After this quarrel a Memphian told the negro he had not been 
well treated by his Yankee friend. The negro replied, "Oh, 
Massa, de Yankee's is jes' mad caze dey cain't take Vicks- 
burg."t 

In this same year a lady went to one of the fortifications 
to ask for her servants. The provost-martial did not see her 
but a subordinate told her that she might get them if they 
would go with her. She went to the slaves and told them that 
she needed their help and wanted them to go home but they 
refused. She urged them further but made no threats, all 
the communication being before the guard sent with her. They 
refused again so she went away with the guard who had 
conducted her there. After she was gone one of the negroes 
said braggingly, "She couldn't make me go!" A guard hear- 
ing what the man said reported it immediately and an officer 
was sent to arrest the woman. She was put under arrest before 
reaching home and told that she was to be taken to the Irving 

*Told by a lady who lived here at the time. 
^Appeal, April 17, 1863. 



134 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Block. She asked to be allowed to first get her baby but was 
refused.* 

Sherman's reign did not last always and when Major-Gen- 
eral Hurlbut was sent to relieve him in December, 1862, Mem- 
phis people felt thankful. This change of officers did 
not mean that harsh rule was at an end but conditions were 
somewhat relieved and, as Colonel Keating says, "the people 
breathed more freely." 

Hurlbut was replaced by General C. C. Washburne. Both 
of these officers adhered to the military laws that had been laid 
down for the government of the city. 

People came continually from the North and the Southern- 
ers were subjected to continual oppression. Colonel Keating says 
of this period: "The experiences of Memphis during the Fed- 
eral occupation were bitter beyond belief, and the humiliations 
put upon her citizens were some of them as brutal as they were 
careless and wanton. She was a conquered city, and her citi- 
zens, such of them as remained, were in their own homes by 
permission, seemingly in the Federal view as suspects ; but this 
•did not justify the extremities of petty and exasperating 
annoyances, the denial of any rights whatever but that of 
merely living, a compulsory restraint being put upon every 
man and woman who desired to earn a living, and pursue any 
avocation for profit or for gain." 

After Andrew Johnson was made military governor of the 
State, laws against disunionists became iron-clad. An oath 
to support the Union was necessary before a man could be an 
officer in the State, or vote. The numerous Union men who had 
come to Memphis and were living here agreed with these 
measures, but it must have been difficult to put the native 
residents entirely under subjection for July 2, 1864, after more 
than two years of military discipline and limited municipal 
government, Major-General Washburn set aside the civil gov- 
ernment and its newly elected officers and issued this ' ' Special 
Order:" 

*Appeal, January 26, 1863. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 135 

"HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF WEST TENNESSEE, 
(Special Order No. 70.) Memphis, Tenn., July 2, 1864. 

"1. The utter failure of the municipal government of 
Memphis for the past two years to discharge its proper func- 
tions, the disloyal character of that government, its want of 
sympathy for the government of the United States, and its 
indisposition to cooperate with the military authorities, have 
long been felt as evils which the public welfare required to be 
abated. They have grown from bad to worse until a further 
toleration of them will not comport with the sense of duty of 
the commanding general. The city of Memphis is under martial 
law, and municipal government, existing since the armed trait- 
ors were driven from the city, has been only by sufferance of 
the military authorities of the United States. Therefore, under 
the authority of general orders No. 100, dated War Department, 
Adjutant General's office, April 24, 1863: 

"It is ordered that the functions of the Municipal govern- 
ment of Memphis be, and they are hereby suspended until 
further orders. 

"The present incumbents are forbidden to perform any 
official acts or exercise any authority whatever; and persons 
supposed to be elected officers of the city at an election held 
on June 30, 1864, will not qualify. That the interests and 
business of the city may not be interrupted, the following 
appointment of officers is made : 

"Acting mayor, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas H. Harris, 
assistant adjutant general United States volunteers ; recorder, 
F. W. Buttinghaus ; treasurer, James D. Davis ; comptroller, 
W. 0. Lofland; tax collector, F. L. Warner; tax collector on 
privileges, John League ; chief of police, P. M. Winters ; wharf- 
master, J. J. Butler, who will be fully respected in the exercise 
of the duties assigned them; and all records, papers, moneys 
and property in any manner pertaining to the offices, govern- 
ments and interests of the city of Memphis, will be immediately 
turned over by the present holders thereof to the officers above 
appointed to succeed them. Said officers will be duly sworn in 
the faithful discharge of their duties and will be required to 
give bonds to the United States in the sums at present pre- 



136 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

scribed by law and the city ordinances for such officers respec- 
tively. 

"The officers herein named and appointed will constitute 
a board which shall discharge the duties heretofore devolving 
upon the board of aldermen, and the acting mayor shall be 
chairman thereof; and their acts, resolutions and ordinances 
shall be valid and of full force and effect until revoked by the 
commanding general of the district of West Tennessee, or 
superior military authority. 

"By order of Major-General C. C. Washburne. 

W. H. Morgan, Maj. and Asst. Adj't-Gen'l. 
Official: W. H. Morgan, Asst. Adj't-Gen'l." 

July 16, "Special order No. .83," modified Order No. 70, 
by providing for a provisional board of mayor and aldermen, 
thus: 

"I. Paragraph I of special orders No. 70, from these head- 
quarters, dated July 2, 1864, is hereby so modified as to consti- 
tute the persons hereinafter named, a council to discharge the 
duties heretofore devolving upon the board of mayor and 
aldermen of the city of Memphis, and they, with the acting 
mayor, are hereby invested with all the powers heretofore 
exercised by the said board of mayor and aldermen, and shall 
receive the usual compensation, and be known as the provi- 
sional mayor and council of the city of Memphis" 

Then followed a list of all the officers appointed. 

This patched-up sort of governmcDt was not beneficial to 
the city and IMemphis degenerated, lack of improvements and 
general neglect naturally leading to decay and a dreadful con- 
dition of streets and property. Taxes were only partially col- 
lected and those collected were not judiciously spent. 

In January, 1865, at the Union convention held in Nashville, 
among other disabilities imposed upon Soutjtiferners, voting 
was restricted to m^"'''' 

"(1) Unconditional Union men; (2) to those who since 
the war had come of age; (3) to persons of proved loyalty 
from other states; (4) to Federal soldiers; (5) to loyal men 
who had been forced into the Confederate Army; (6) to persons 
known to the election judges to have been true friends of the 



History of Memphis, 2'ennessee. 137 

United States; (7) it disfranchised ex-Confederates of high 
rank for fifteen years and others for fiive; and (8) it imposed 
the test oath on all voters. A bill was also passed declaring 
that negroes had a right to vote under the Constitution, which 
was the same as that of 1796, under which free negroes had 
voted."* 

In April of this year the war ended. That should have 
been the beginning of better times for the South as well as 
for the North, but alas ! Many politicians who had not served 
their country in the war were eager to pack their carpet-bags 
and hie to the devastated country where most of the best people 
were disfranchised and the childish negro men had been lifted 
to the pinnacle of voting, a height they little comprehended, 
and which their new masters — in reality, though not in name — • 
the "carpet-baggers," took advantage of to the end of serving 
their own purposes. 

April 14, Abraham Lincoln was killed. That tragedy and 
the death of one who had so faithfully studied the problem 
of the readjustment of the States, proved a greater loss to the 
South than to the North. History tells us how vengeance was 
visited upon the already stricken country and how innocent 
persons were put to death, martyred and otherwise punished 
for that terrible killing and the whole Southern country made 
to suffer hardships even as great as those of the war. 

On July 3, 1865, military rule in Memphis ended, Major- 
General John E. Smith, who then commanded the troops 
stationed here, revoking special orders 70 and 83, and turning 
over all books, papers and authority to the new city officers. 
These recently-elected officers were John Park, mayor; John 
Creighton, recorder ; B. G. Garrett, chief of police. 

Memphis started under this new government with condi- 
tions so changed that it was difficult for the officers to know 
how to conduct affairs. Labor was different, citizenship was 
different and business seemed to be unbalanced. 

Business was chiefly carried on with Northern capital as 
Southerners had become impoverished, especially all those 
who had taken part in the Confederate Army or had in any 

♦Keating. 



138 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

way aided that cause. Property of all such actors or sympa- 
thizers was consumed by the direct war-taxes that had been 
levied by the Federal government. The owners could not pay 
these taxes and the property was sold at public auction. Many 
of the carpet-baggers of that time, as well as respectable 
Northern people became rich from the misfortunes of Mem- 
phians who were unable to retain their property and powerless 
to prevent the sales. 

Lawyers who had been Confederate soldiers could not 
practice in the courts and most of the respectable element of 
the town was disfranchised. Negroes had been given the fran- 
chise and other men who enjoyed this privilege were largely 
of a low element who had come into Memphis. Many of these 
came in from the river and afterwards proved to be very 
undesirable citizens. 

James F. Rhodes speaks of the legislation in the South of 
that time as "enfranchising ignorance and disfranchising 
intelligence," and he continues, "It provided that the most 
degraded negro could vote while Robert E. Lee, Wade Hamp- 
ton, Alexander H. Stephens and Governor Joseph E. Brown 
could not. * * * * It followed that the ignorant Congo Negro 
was a better citizen for the upbuilding of the new State than a 
man of the highest intelligence and largest political experience, 
who had sided with the Confederacy. Obviously this view was 
more partisan than patriotic." 

There were many foreign laborers in Memphis at this time, 
these being chiefly of the fixed foreign type. The Irish laborer 
had an unreasonable hatred for the negro and rivalry between 
them became so great as to be another problem in the city's 
welfare. 

Though ]\Iemphis was said to have returned to civil gov- 
ernment, Major-General Stoneman was stationed here with 
white and negro troops and the latter proved a source of much 
annoyance to Memphis people. 

Policemen had been largely appointed from the Irish voters 
and they and the negro soldiers became avowed enemies. 

Some of the white Northerners who had come to Memphis to 
teach or preach to the colored people, with no knowledge of the 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 139 

negro character, still in a childish stage of development, were con- 
tinually firing their students with the idea that they were better 
than their former owners and that they must assert their rights 
and their superiority on all possible occasions. Many of the 
Northern whites were above this, of course, and many of the 
negroes could not be induced to injure or even speak against 
their "white folks," but the lawless part of the community 
grew in strength until life for respectable people, white and 
black, became a problem difficult to be solved. 

Many of the rabble part of discharged soldiers from the 
Union army had gathered in Memphis and some of the negroes, 
intoxicated with their new freedom, and intoxicated with 
liquor much of the time, did not make a desirable element in a 
community and their lawlessness found many vents. Living 
in the country or even suburbs was really dangerous at that 
time. Numbers of homes of ex-Confederates were burned for 
no cause except the spite of the incendiary, and on several 
occasions white people were shot down by drunken and sober 
negro soldiers. Many families were compelled to abandon their 
country homes and move into town for safety. 

The Freedman's Bureau, originated for a worthy purpose, 
and at first conducted in a manner beneficial to blacks and 
whites, became a machine of much corruption. Mr. G. S. 
Shanklin, writes of the Freedman's Bureau as "the manufac- 
turer of paupers and vagabonds, the fruitful source of strife, 
vice and crime," and Colonel Keating states: "It assumed to 
regulate labor, substituting for the free will of the late slave 
the one-man direction of officials who cloaked their rapacity 
and money-greed behind a zeal sustained by sectional hate, and 
the hot fanaticism of the abolition furies whose passions were 
not satisfied with the manumission of the negro, and could 
only be so by the degradation of the whites. Many of the 
agents of this Bureau made a fence of the Redeemer's name, 
behind which to caricature his compassion and humanity, and 
enact, surrounded by all conceivable devices, sham sympathy, 
which for a time only concealed their villanies long enough, 
however, to enable them to maintain their ill-gotten and ill- 



140 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

managed political power, and by it rob the victims of their 
pseudo-philanthropy. ' ' 

President Johnson, through whose agency so many "recon- 
struction" hardships had come upon the Southland, with his 
talent for changing views, again became the South 's friend and 
then used his power to raise it from misfortune. He said now 
that he wished the South to "be remitted to its former status in 
the Union, with all its manhood." 

The year after the war Memphis was truly an afflicted city. 
In the throes of carpet-bag misrule, the best of her population 
unable to take any part in public affairs, officers and voters 
mostly made up of comparative strangers and riffraff, and all 
city matters in chaos, — it was depressing to think of the out- 
come. A bomb goes its distance and then bursts. So it was 
with the Memphis political and social bomb at that period. It 
was speeding its way from the mortar of confusion, and in May, 
1866, exploded its destructive easing and shrapnel, scattering 
death among innocent and guilty alike. 

In Fort Pickering there were 4,000 negro soldiers, per- 
vaded with an exaggerated idea of their own importance, who 
were continually insulting white women as well as white men, 
and the fact that they were being encouraged by white people, 
aroused the indignation of respectable white Southerners 
toward them and the hatred of ignorant classes of white people 
toward all negroes. Thoughtful people of Southern and Nor- 
thern birth tried to prevent outrages arising from the fast- 
crystalizing hatred, by petitioning the President of the United 
States for their removal. President Johnson referred this 
petition to the secretary of war and he to General Thomas, who 
declined to grant it. When this fact became known it only 
increased the insolence of the black troops. General Stoneman 
was in charge of the department of Tennessee, with his head- 
quarters at Memphis. He tried to enforce discipline and did to 
a degree, but his own attitude toward Southerners was not 
especially friendly. 

In April of that unfortunate year the four negro regi- 
ments causing most of the disturbance were mustered out of 
service, but after their discharge they continued to lounge 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 141 

around the fort, awaiting their pay, and wandering through 
the city, more dangerous under the loose discipline they now 
enjoyed than before. They frequented low houses, drank a 
great deal and so annoyed the poorer class of white people 
that some of them resented it to the point of chastising several 
of the obstreperous blacks. This aroused the negroes to fierce 
wrath and they swore vengeance. 

On the afternoon of May 1, 1866, one hundred or more 
of these soldiers were "on a spree" and making great dis- 
turbance in South Memphis, not far from the fort. About 
three o'clock a policeman arrested one of the negroes who 
had been very unruly and the soldiers rescued him, for which 
they cheered loudly and made great threats about what they 
meant to do to white people and to the policemen especially. 
An hour later six policemen went to the neighborhood and 
two of them arrested two particularly boisterous soldiers. 
This caused the others to crowd about with yells of "Stone 
'em!" "Shoot 'em!" "Club 'em!" 

As these officers went along the four who had dropped 
behind joined them and the six kept the crowd off, but soon 
about forty of the soldiers began to fire their revolvers, while 
others threw rocks or missies or brandished sticks. The 
officers then turned and fired into the crowd. One of the police- 
men was shot and soon after one of the soldiers, which caused 
them to make a rush down Causey Street for the police. Many 
shots were fired on both sides. After dark the negro soldiers 
went into the fort and were not out again that night, but the 
police and white people of the class that make up a mob, 
gathered in numbers and fury. About ten o 'clock they returned 
to the scene of the former trouble but found no negroes abroad 
with hostile intent. Then they broke up into squads and some 
of these passion-aroused creatures wreaked their vengeance 
on innocent negroes, burning their homes, robbing and killing 
many of the inmates. 

The next morning, Wednesday, May 2, the mob broke 
loose again and committed deeds as disgraceful as those of 
the night before. Sheriff Winters had got together a posse, 
after having failed to get military assistance from Major-Gen- 



142 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

eral Stoneman, and tried, with the police, to put down the 
riot. However, a large number of them joined the mob, flag- 
rantly deserting the cause for which they had been called out. 
These deserters, made up largely of foreigners, now had an 
opportunity to vent their spite on the negroes and did it, 
without regard to the innocence or guilt, sex or age of their 
victims, the only offense needful being a dark skin. The sheriff 
rescued one colored man from four men and tried to quell the 
general disorder, but was powerless with his handful of men. 

Wednesday night the mob was out again. Seeing Mr. M. 
C. Gallaway, editor of the Avalanche, a paper Southern in its 
sympathies, some of the men tried to lift him to their shoulders 
and persuade him to lead the mob to the office of the Post, a 
republican paper, and demolish that office. He refused and 
appealed to the men not to attempt such a thing, trying to 
make them comprehend how harmful such a proceeding would 
be. Mr. Gallaway afterward testified that he did not know 
a man in the mob. After the crowd left him they shot at two 
negroes. The colored population was very scarce that night, 
the mass of them being secreted by white people in their homes. 
A striking fact connected with this riot was that of the two 
thousand or more ex-Confederate veterans resident in the city, 
not one raised his hand against the negroes but, in hundreds 
of instances, sheltered them in their homes. 

By Thursday the mob was under control, though there 
were a few spurts of feeling on that day.* 

This riot, like other occurrences in Southern cities during 
that strained period of "reconstruction" was the outcome of 
extreme prejudice on both sides. It was disgraceful in itself, 
as all passionate revolutions are, but did not brand all Mem- 
phis people, as was claimed by some papers and political 
parties. At the time of its outbreak there was extreme antag- 
onism between the negroes and a large element of white people, 
especially the Irish laboring class, who have never been known 

*This description is taken from the testimony of Major D. Upman, 
a United States officer and strong Union man; Dr. S. J. Quimby, a 
five months' resident of Memphis, from Center Harbor, Mich., who 
served in the Union army from 1862 to the close, part of the time 
commanding colored troops; and others. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 143 

to affiliate with people of an inferior race. From one-half to 
two-thirdst of the' better class of white men were disfran- 
chised, so that the men in political power were largely from 
the inferior class of society, such officers frequently being 
unequal to their duties and not men who would have been 
selected by the two thousand or more disfranchised Confed- 
erate officers and soldiers living in Memphis at the time. 

The Memphis police force in 1866 comprised 180 men, of 
these 167 being Irish, 8 American and 5 of unknown national- 
ity. The firemen in April and May, 1866, numbered 46, of 
whom 42 were foreign born, 3 Americans and one unknown. As 
this was the official material the sheriff and mayor had for 
their posses, the futility of their efforts can be understood. 
It was much like taking a troop of lions to guard a herd of 
unruly cattle. 

Mr. G. S. Shanklin, member of the Select Committee, 
afterward selected by Congress to investigate the Memphis 
riots, said: "It is most conclusively shown by all the testi- 
mony in this investigation that this mob was exclusively com- 
posed of the police, firemen, rowdy and rabble population of 
the city of Memphis, the greater part of whom are voters in 
the city of Memphis, under the franchise law of the State of 
Tennessee, enacted by what is known and called the 'radical 
Brownlow party,' and intended to disfranchise all persons in 
that State, who had in any manner aided, encouraged or 
abetted the late rebellion, and thereby place the political and 
civil power of the State in the hands of and under the con- 
trol of those they call true loyal men." 

The mayor and sheriff have been harshly criticised for 
not quelling the riots, and even accused of abetting it, but 
both these officers tried to get the cooperation of the military 
in restoring order on the first day. At the breaking out of 
the riots Tuesday afternoon. May 1, Sheriff Winters appealed 
to Major-General Stoneman for troops but that officer refused 
aid, saying that he wished to see if the city could govern 
herself and stop disturbances, as Southern people had boasted 
she could, if the United States troops were removed. The 

tShanklin. 



144 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

same afternoon, shortly after the sheriff's call, Mayor Park 
sent this communication to Major-General Stoneman : 

"Mayor's Office, City of Memphis, May 1, 1866. 

' ' General : There is an uneasiness in the public mind, grow- 
ing out of the occurrences of today, which would be materially 
calmed if there was an assurance of military cooperation with 
the civil police in suppressing all disturbances of the public 
peace. I should be happy to have it iu my power to give this 
assurance at once. It would intimidate the lawless, and serve 
to allay the apprehensions of the orderly. I therefore request 
that you will order a force of, say, two hundred men, com- 
manded by discreet officers, to be held ready to cooperate with 
the constabulary force of the citj'' in case of any further con- 
tinued lawlessness. 

"I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

John Park, Mayor." 

General Stoneman responded, as follows : 

"Headquarters Department of Tennessee, 

Memphis, Tennessee, May 1, 1866. 

"Dear Sir: — I am in receipt of yours of this instant. In 
reply I have the honor to inform you that the small force of 
regular infantry stationed at this post, in all not more than 
one hundred and fifty strong, will be directed to hold itself in 
readiness to cooperate with the civil authorities of Memphis 
in 'case of further continued lawlessness.' This force is in 
camp at the fort, where you can communicate with the com- 
manding officer in case you shall find that you need his assist- 
ance and support. I should prefer that the troops be called 
upon only in case of an extreme necessity, of which you must 
be the judge. 

"I am very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Geo. Stoneman, Major-General Commanding." 

Two days later. May 3, some Memphis citizens had a meet- 
ing at the courthouse, after which this letter and resolutions 
were sent to Major-General Stoneman: 

"Memphis, Tennessee, May 3, 1866. 

"Sir: — I am requested by the citizens composing a meet- 
ing held this morning at the courthouse to lay before you 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 145 

the following resolutions which passed unanimously, and to 
request from you your cooperation in any measures that may 
be taken in pursuance thereof, 

Respectfully yours, 

R. C. Brinkley." 
^^Resolutio7is. 
''Resolved, That the mayor of the city and the sheriff of 
the county together with the chairman of this meeting, (W. 
B. Greenlaw,) be authorized to summon a force of citizens of 
sufficient number to act in connection with the military, which 
shall constitute a patrol for the protection of the city, to 
serve such time as the mayor, sheriff, and chairman of the 
meeting shall direct. 

"Resolved, That the chairman, (W. B. Greenlaw,) J. H. 
McMahan, S. P. Walker and R. C. Brinkley, be requested to 
wait upon General Stoneman and inform him of the proceedings 
of this meeting. 

W. B. Greenlaw, Chairman. 
R. C. Brinkley, Secretary." 
Major General Stoneman, U. S. A. 

Commanding Department of Tennessee." 

In his testimony afterward taken by the Select Committee, 
appointed by Congress to investigate the riots. General Stone- 
man said, "When this resolution was transmitted to me, I 
told them I had determined to take the thing into my own 
hands, and that I should have to set all civil government 
aside." 

His written response to the above communication, was : 
"Headquarters Department of Tennessee. 

Memphis, Tennessee, May 3, 1866. 
"To the Mayor, City Council and all civil authorities of the 

County of Shelby, and City of Memphis : 

"Gentlemen: Circumstances compel the undersigned to 
interfere with civil affairs in the city of Memphis. It is for- 
bidden for any person, without the authority from these head- 
quarters, to assemble together any posse, armed or unarmed, 
white or colored. This does not include the police force of 



146 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the city, and will not so long as they can be relied upon as 
preservers of the peace. 

"I am, gentlemen, very respectfully, 
Your obedient servant, 
Geo. Stoneman, Major-Gen '1 Commanding." 

General Stoneman seemed to be somewhat vindictive in 
his conduct. In his testimony he said that Union officers were 
not welcome in Memphis society and that Southern people were 
less loyal than they had been six months previous to that time. 
He also complained that they were ever ready to cheer 
"Dixie" and to hiss "Yankee Doodle," and that the only flags 
to be seen in the city were the one at his headquarters, one 
at the Freedmen's Bureau and one in front of the Republican 
paper, the Post. He sent word to the manager of the theatre 
that he would interfere if national airs were again hissed. He 
showed little understanding of human nature in condemning a 
feeling that had been part of the nature of Southern people 
for over four years and he seemed not to comprehend that it 
had taken just such treatment to make Southern people "less 
loyal than they had been six months before." 

Mr. Shanklin wrote : 

"No city in the Mississippi Valley can claim a more intel- 
ligent cultivated and refined society, or more active and effi- 
cient business men can be found, than in the city of Memphis. 
The growth of the city is rapid, the masses of the population 
are industrious, orderly and moral, and with these classes the 
sentiment of condemnation of the riot is universal; then why 
should they suffer reproach or condemnation? They were 
deprived by the law, in the enactment of which most of them 
had no voice, civil or legal power; they had but recently 
emerged from military control and government. The military 
was then present for the purpose of aiding in the enforcement 
of the law and preventing disorder; and whilst they in a large 
body offered their services to General Stoneman, and to be 
under his control, and such officers as he might appoint over 
them, to aid in suppressing the mob, these proffered services 
having been declined by General Stoneman, it is fair to pre- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 147 

sume that they came to the conclusion that it would have 
been improper for them to interfere in the matter." 

The outlook for Memphis was not promising. Leaders of 
the government misunderstood conditions in the South, were 
unable to grasp them or felt only rancor toward ex-Confeder- 
ates. The best material of Southern citizenship, — the men 
who were capable of the best feeling, best reasoning and judg- 
ment, and who, since they knew the cause they had fought 
and suffered for to be lost, were the sort to look the inevitable 
in the face and go to work on new lines to readjust affairs to 
suit the changed conditions, were, according to the law, placed 
lower than the ignorant, the childish and rabble material of 
the community. James Ford Rhodes, writing of this period, 
says: "It may be affirmed with confidence that there was 
nothing in the condition of the South which required the 
stringent military rule provided for in the Reconstruction 
acts." 

All Northern men were not in sympathy with these "strin- 
gent" measures, and Mr. Rhodes quotes Governor Andrews 
of Massachusetts as saying: "The true question is now, not 
of past disloyalty, but of present loyal purpose," to which he 
himself adds : ' ' On the practical question of loyalty the 
Southern men were sound." 

Abraham Lincoln must have realized the state of disrup- 
tion that would be brought about by the mismanagement of 
reconstruction when he said in his last public speech, April 1, 
1865, "We shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg 
than by smashing it." This just man also said: "We can't 
undertake state governments in all these Southern states. Their 
people must do that, though I reckon that at first they may do 
it badly." 

Insults to Confederate soldiers continued at intervals but, 
as inharmony is not the true and God-given state of man, 
it cannot always last, and adjustment was slowly asserting 
itself. In June of this chaotic year of the riots and other race 
and political disturbances, it was decided that all criminal 
cases in which negroes were parties were to be turned over to 
the civil authorities of Memphis, and these officers were also 



148 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

authorized to take charge of the medical and other hospital 
stores which had been under the charge of the Freedmen's 
Bureau. 

But the Bureau was only dying, not dead. On the thir- 
teenth of this month Brigadier-General Runkle, who was in 
charge of Bureau affairs at Memphis, issued an order that "all 
contracts with negroes must be registered and approved by 
the Freedmen's Bureau, otherwise they would have no bind- 
ing force."* 

This order retarded adjustment between the races and was 
the indirect cause of more bad feeling. The police of the city 
were organized into a force that amounted to militia and they 
and the citizens became very antagonistic. Later, officers and 
police became implicated in crimes that brought them into 
even more disrepute. The unscrupulous among these men 
used, so far as possible, the power given them by the "Brown- 
low radical administration." The commissionert was charged 
with "forgery, bribery and robbery, and with two of his 
detectives,$ was placed under bonds, and the grand jury found 
two bills against them,"§ but this case, with others against 
the "radicals" could not be sustained, especially after Novem- 
ber, when the Legislature passed an act "disqualifying and 
prohibiting all Confederate soldiers and sympathizers serving 
as jurors. "I [ 

The "radicals," "carpet-baggers," or "scalawags," as 
they were variously called, usually narrow and fanatical, 
could not grasp the true status, and so Southern respectability 
was forced into the background while those in charge officially 
had full sway. They succeeded in getting the entire country 
into a muddle, deeper into debt and filling their own pockets. 
Again quoting Mr. Rhodes: "Military government at the 
South may be described as possessing all powers and no 
responsibilities." 

John Park was continuously elected mayor of Memphis 
until after the war and when the conflict came to an end he 
remained in office a year longer than his expired term, owing 

*Keating. tBeaumont. JPratt and Norton. SKeating 

Moid Folks Record. 



History of Memphis^ Tennessee. 149 

to the fact that no election was held that year. On October 
15, 1866, W. 0. Lofland was elected to the office for two years, 
that time being determined the following year, 1867, by the 
Legislature for the term of mayor's office. 

This same Legislature enlarged the boundaries of Mem- 
phis as follows : 

"From mouth of Wolf River to Brinkley Street, thence 
east to Mosely Avenue, thence south to old Raleigh road, 
thence east to Brinkley Avenue, thence south to its termination, 
thence to Dunlap Street, thence to west boundary of Elmwood 
Cemetery, thence to Walker Avenue, thence west to Bayou 
Gayoso, thence to Gaines Street, thence by this street to Missis- 
sippi River, thence by the river to the beginning. The added 
territory to compose the Ninth and Tenth wards, Madison Street 
dividing them."* 

The county seat was also moved from Raleigh this year 
back to Memphis. 

The city debt was all this while increasing enormously. 
The papers tried to make the people realize the seriousness and 
detriment to the city of this debt, but affairs were in too 
much turmoil generally and too much distrust was abroad 
for matters to be set straight or even attempted by the people 
then. However, this very state of affairs was waking citizens 
to more determination to get the city government into their 
own hands, and some of the state senators and representatives 
were beginning to work to the end of placing the people in 
power over the State. 

President Johnson, with all of his erratic behavior and 
unpopularity was at this time doing what he could to lift the 
white man's burden in the South. In Memphis he became 
as popular as he had been unpopular, and a mass meeting was 
held in Court Square, where his new policy of restoration was 
publicly sanctioned and delegates elected to a convention that 
was to be held in Philadelphia for the purpose of uniting in 
a "National Union Party," all in favor of the President's 
policy. Forty-one Democratic members of Congress signed 

*01d Folks Record. 



150 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

an address to the people of the United States, approving the 
call of this convention, the aim of which was to bring harmony 
to the distracted country. These signers endorsed all of its 
principles, Southerners accepting much that was distasteful 
and even humiliating, for the sake of bringing about a more 
livable condition of government in their land. 

This National convention, held in June, helped to break 
down the barrier between the sections and gave a blow to 
the rabid radicalism which was threatening even the Consti- 
tution. 

Soon after this Memphis gave her first public greeting to 
a Union soldier, — General Frank P. Blair. He was cordially 
received by the mayor and aldermen and was warmly greeted 
as he arose to address the people. 

Confederate soldiers, who had so long remained silent, 
began to show interest in aifairs and when General Blair again 
visited the city they gave him a hearty welcome and General 
Forrest this time introduced him to an audience. 

Colonel Keating says of these pacifying events, "The ice 
was at last broken. Brownlow and his Legislature were no 
longer to have things their own way." 

But this change for the better was only beginning. Con- 
tinued night stealing, burning and other depredations by 
negroes was rarely punished, which gave them more and more 
a sense of license and insolence, and had become such a 
nuisance and even terror that strategy was resorted to by 
men who understood their superstitious natures. A secret 
order for frightening them into their homes at night was 
formed and became known as the Ku Klux Klan. 

The object of the organizers of this order was to bring 
tranquility and safety to the community, nor was their method 
new, though their particular klan was. Numerous such orders 
have come down to us through history, notably the Nihilists 
of Russia, Alumbrados of Spain and other orders organized 
for religious freedom. 

The Ku Klux Klan was secretly and mysteriously con- 
ducted and its members could not be caught. These men would 
ride about the country at night in fantastic garb, pretending to 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 151 

be the spirits of departed Confederate soldiers, come back to 
avenge outrages on their people. Some of them had a method 
of seeming to elongate themselves and others had concealed 
bags into which they would empty one or more buckets of 
water, seeming to the astonished onlookers to be drinking it. 
Soon the colored population could not be induced to leave 
their houses at night and some white people were quite as 
much afraid. 

L. C. Lester and D. L. Wilson give this explanation of the 
object and results of this peculiar order: 

'* Whatever may be the judgment of history, those who 
know the facts will ever remain firm in the conviction that the 
Ku Klux Klan was of immense service at this period of South- 
ern history. Without it, in many sections of the South, life to 
decent people would not have been tolerable. It served a good 
purpose. Wherever the Ku Klux appeared the effect was 
salutary. For a while the robberies ceased. The lawless class 
assumed the habits of good behavior." 

After the Klan has achieved its purpose it went out of 
existence in 1869, and its members ceased their self-imposed 
discipline. The Ku Klux Klan has often been maligned and 
men were arrested, after the order had disbanded, for miscon- 
duct done under the guise of the former Klan. Lester and 
Wilson say of this: "No single instance occurred of the 
arrest of a masked man who proved to be — when stripped of 
his disguises — a Ku Klux." 

At a Ku Klux convention held in Nashville in 1867, where 
numerous and prominent Memphis men were in attendance, 
their principles were thus stated : 

(1) To protect the weak, the innocent and the defenseless, 
from the indignities, wrongs and outrages of the lawless, the 
violent and the brutal ; to relieve the injured and the oppressed ; 
to succor the suffering, and especially the widows and orphans 
of Confederate soldiers. 

(2) To protect and defend the Constitution of the United 
States, and all laws passed in conformity thereto, and to 
protect the States and people thereof from all invasion from 
any source whatever. 



152 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

(3) To aid and assist in the execution of all constitutional 
laws, and to protect the people from unlawful seizure, and 
from trial except by their peers in conformity to the laws of 
the land. 

Instead of having treasonable designs, as had been pre- 
ferred against them, their creed is additional proof of fidelity 
to the United States. 

Creed. 

We, the order of the * * * ^ reverentially acknowledge 
the majesty and supremacy of the Divine Being, and recognize 
the goodness and providence of the same. And we recognize 
our relation to the United States Government, the supremacy 
of the Constitution, the Constitutional laws thereof, and the 
Union of States thereunder. 

But behind it all was a determined purpose to rid the 
"reconstructed" Southern States of carpet-bag government 
and misrule, and this was ultimately accomplished. 

The last of this decade of the sixties, with its war effects, 
was as disastrous for Memphis as the war itself. Municipal 
and financial affairs were in deplorable condition, an epidemic 
of yellow fever in 1867 claimed 550 victims and several big 
fires added to the stress of losses already experienced. 

The people were discouraged, but were sustained by the 
greatest gift to human beings, — Hope ! 

Each year seemed to strengthen affairs a little and better 
feeling between Northerners and Southerners was making its 
way. Carpet-bag rule was weakened and the South was begin- 
ning to stand up again. By 1870 all her states had been read- 
mitted to the Union and she was avowedly and really ready 
to take her part in the welfare of the common country. 

The year 1870 started with John W. Leftwich as mayor, he 
having succeeded W. 0. Lofland. In that year the Memphis 
board of rulers was changed from that of "Mayor and Alder- 
men" to "Mayor, Board of Aldermen and Board of Common 
Councilmen, " all these together denominated the General 
Council. Each ward was entitled to one alderman, elected for 
two years, and two councilmen, elected for one year. The city 
boundaries were also reduced at this time thus : 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 153 

Beginning at a point on the west line of the State of 
Tennessee, where the center of Kerr Street, produced, would 
strike the Mississippi River; thence eastward on a line with 
the center of Kerr Street, if extended, would strike the town 
reserve ; thence southward, along the said east line of the town 
reserve, to the middle of the old Raleigh road, or Johnson's 
Avenue ; thence eastward along the middle of the old Raleigh 
road to a point where the center line of Dunlap Street, pro- 
duced, northward, would intersect the same ; thence southward 
along the said produced line, and the middle line of Dunlap 
Street to the middle of Union Avenue ; thence westward along 
the middle of Union Avenue to the middle of Walnut Street ; 
thence southward along the middle of Walnut Street to the 
middle of the old Fort Pickering Railroad; thence westward 
along the middle of the old Fort Pickering Railroad, or Broad- 
way, to the middle of Bayou Gayoso ; thence southward, up 
said bayou, and along the middle of the same, to Jackson Street ; 
thence along the middle of Jackson Street and the prolonga- 
tion of said street, to the west line of the State of Tennessee; 
thence northward with the west line of the State of Tennessee 
to the beginning. 

The valuation of real and personal property in Memphis 
for this same year, was: 

"fixed at $24,783,190, upon which was levied a tax of 
$486,881, divided as follows: For schools, $74,359; interest 
tax, $239,049 ; city tax, $173,482. The value of real and per- 
sonal property in the city of Memphis as returned by the asses- 
sor from and inclusive of 1860 and 1870, was as follows : 1860, 
$16,897,000; 1861, $21,153,000; 1862, $18,297,000; 1863, 
$16,693,000; 1864, $15,026,000; 1865, $15,574,000; 1866, 
$17,823,000; 1867, $30,819,900; 1868, $28,564,000; 1869, 
$28,528,000; 1870, $24,783,000."* 

In January of 1870 John Johnson was elected mayor of 
the city and served two terms, or four years. The Federal 
census of this year gave Memphis a population of 40,226. Of 
this number 24,755 were white ; 15,471, colored ; 6,780, foreign ; 
3,371, Irish; 2,144, German.f 

*Vedder. tKeating. 



154 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

This showed an increase of nearly 18,000, although the 
Ninth and Tenth wards had been taken from the corporation. 
This official census encouraged the people as it proved that the 
town was at least active and they trusted to its becoming sane 
and harmonious soon. 

"Reconstruction," so called, was ended in Tennessee and 
although carpet-bag rule had depleted Memphis, the people 
felt relieved, took heart and hoped to do their little part in the 
working out of the Nation's welfare. 

The Charter Amendment provided that day and night 
police, exclusive of the chief, should consist of one policeman 
to every 1,000 inhabitants under the Federal census. The 
Board of Commissioners were to elect the chief of the Fire 
Department, and to adopt rules of discipline, which they 
required the chief to enforce. There were to be enough fire- 
men to manage all the equipment and to extinguish fires, but 
no more, and they were also to be employed by the Commis- 
sioners. 

One of the first duties imposed on the General Council was 
to establish work-houses and houses of correction. 

Municipal enterprise was going forward. "Work was being 
done on the streets and the Popular Street turnpike was near- 
ing completion. Two railroads that had been discussed and 
agitated in former years were begun, — one to Selma, Alabama, 
and the other to Paducah, Kentucky. 

The new mayor was much handicapped by the condition 
in which he found affairs. In his first report he stated that 
the city was "without a dollar of cash in her treasury and 
her credit so impaired that she was really paying at least two 
prices for all services rendered, or supplies purchased; her 
bonds, authorized to be issued to fund due outstanding indebt- 
edness, having been and being disposed of by her own officefs 
at less than fifty cents on the dollar to pay current expenses; 
and though ostensibly the pay of the city employees and sup- 
plies obtained were at cash rates, yet, by allowances thereon 
in various ways, and for heavy interest on loans, and fabulous 
discount on bonds sold, the cost to the city was eventually more 
than double the amount nominally paid. Her floating debt. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 155 

then over $600,000 in excess of all assets applicable for its 
liquidation, was being increased in the ratio of 100 to 65, by 
being exchanged for her own six per cent bonds, so that, in 
taking up $65 of debt in one shape, she issued to the fortunate 
holders thereof, $100 in a much better form. The floating debt 
at that date being, in round numbers about $1,200,000, with 
assets applicable to its reduction to only half that amount, and 
that inequality between debt and means continuously and 
rapidly increasing, it must be obvious to any one who will 
impartially examine this matter, that this pretense of merely 
taking up floating indebtedness by issuance of six per cent 
bonds when in the exchange there was really so great an 
increase, would, by a continuance of the system (the city's 
credit rapidly depreciating as her necessities increased) soon 
have led to financial ruin and actual bankruptcy." 

The city's total debt July 1, 1870, amounted to $4,785,000, 
her assets, all told, to $882,488.* 

Mr. Johnson considered this state of affairs appalling, as well 
he might, and proposed that the city be run on a cash basis 
until finances were in better condition, but the people did not 
join with him and he was "hampered and hindered by ward 
politicians, "t 

$500,000 more of bonds were issued for funding purposes. 
Taxes were high but debt increased and poor management was 
fast hurrying Memphis to bankruptcy and humiliation. Distrust 
was felt on all sides and the mayor himself was charged with 
fraud in regard to "the payment of some Memphis coupons 
in the hands of the state, "$ but he was exonerated by Mr. 
William M. Farrington, president of the Union & Planters 
Bank, in a manner so satisfactory to the public that he was 
reelected mayor at the next municipal election. 

Crimes were so numerous during this time that many 
arrests were made and it became necessary to hold so many 
criminals that in August of 1871 Judge Flippin lectured on 
the state of affairs and warned those in charge of the jail to 
be vigorous "in preventing criminals from escaping and mur- 

*Keating. flbid. JKeating. 



156 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

derers too much freedom in the jail and from preventing 
women from having free access to them." 

The levy of taxes became so heavy that citizens protested 
strongly, even appealed to the Supreme Court and Legislature 
for redress, but the Supreme Court sustained the city govern- 
ment and declared their legislation constitutional. But even 
the excessive taxes could not meet expenses and suits were 
brought against the city for debts. One contractor brought 
suit for $448,000, for Nicholson pavement, and obtained judg- 
ment.* 

In the midst of her own troubles news came to Memphis of 
the terrible Chicago fire and she raised over $50,000 for the 
benefit of the thousands made homeless by that catastrophe. 
Little did she think then that the sufferers from that great 
conflagration would, in a few years, be called upon to help 
her own stricken people. 

"While this burden of excessive taxes was being borne by 
the people, who were striving to build up their unfortunate 
city, the fact was published by the grand jury that the County 
Court had not been spending as much for public improvements 
as the city and county had been charged for. The tax-collector 
was declared to be a defaulter to the amount of $100,0{)0 and 
the amount was afterwards found to be three times that sum. 

When their officials could not be trusted the people knew 
their troubles were not decreasing. While they were taxed 
beyond the rates of larger cities, still municipal affairs were 
woefully neglected. The streets were in poor condition, filth 
was allowed to accumulate in yards, alleys and even streets, 
and sewerage was scarcely regarded at all. As effect is sure to 
follow cause, Memphis paid the penalty for this neglect. 

The beginning of 1873 seemed to point to an unraveling of 
municipal tangles and to city prosperity, but plans of men 
are as naught when Nature punishes. It is then that we realize 
that merely human existence is very uncertain, and that to be 
well in this span of life we must regard the laws of decency 
and right as pointed out to us by Mother Nature herself. The 
unsanitary conditions of Memphis, the foul air that had been 

*Ibid. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee, 157 

allowed to hover over her homes and streets, — all the general 
neglect, brought their lesson to Memphis. 

As the last decade had been one of war and poorly man- 
aged reconstruction, this one seemed to be destined for one of 
pestilence. Before the winter of early 1'873 was over small-pox 
laid seize to the city; in June and July it was followed by a 
"malignant type of Asiatic cholera,"* and in August came 
yellow fever. 

When yellow fever was pronounced epidemic, September 
14,t the people were terror-stricken and in a very short while 
the population was reduced to 25,000, and many of these left 
later. Business of course was almost entirely suspended, the 
law of self-preservation usurping all other interests. Of those 
left 4,204 were stricken with the disease, of which number 1,244 
died.l 

Memphis was in poor condition to care for an epidemic, 
but a Citizens' Executive Committee was organized and they 
set valiantly to work to care for the stricken, soliciting aid 
from abroad. All the states responded to this call and several 
European countries sent large subscriptions. The Howard 
Association, which had been formed for the especial purpose 
of aiding yellow fever epidemics, called its forces together 
the day after the announcement of the epidemic. Only eight 
of its original members responded to the roll-call, but more 
joined the association and they were soon engaged in their noble 
work. The eight members on hand when the meeting was called 
were : J. G. Lonsdale, Sr., Dr. P. P. Frame, A. D. Langstaff, W. 
J. B. Lonsdale, J. P. Robertson, E. J. Mansford, A. G. Raymond 
and Fred Gutherz. The new members were: W. J. Smith, J. 
J. Murphy, B. P. Anderson, J. G. Simpson, W. P. Wilson, G. 
W. Gordon, J. H. Smith, E. B. Foster, A. E. Frankland, W. S. 
Rogers, W. A. Holt, F. F. Bowen, J. F. Porter, R. T. Halstead, 
T. R. Waring, S. W. Rhode, W. J. Lemon, W. G. Barth, L. 

♦Father D. A. Quinn. 

tAccording to Dowell. He also says that the first case appeared 
August 1, and the last November 9. 

JDowell gives these figures as the nearest estimate, not including 
those that died before September 14, and after November 9, although 
there were deaths both before and after those dates, but no official 
record was kept of them. 



158 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Seibeck, J. E. Lanphier, J. H. Edmondson, John Johnston 
(attorney), J. W. Cooper, F. A. Tyler, Jr., C. A. Laffingwell, 
H. D. Connell, P. W. Semmes, D. E. Brettenum and D. B. 
Graham.* They only had $130 in the treasury but their call 
for aid was quickly responded to by contributions of money, 
clothing and provisions of all sorts from all over the country. 

Several physicians who had had experience with the disease 
came to the city and many other helpers came at the call of 
distress. Besides the workers of the Howard Association and 
the Citizens' Committee, the Odd Fellows, Masons, priests and 
sisters of the Catholic church, and others volunteered service, 
and contributions from Protestant, Catholic and Jewish 
churches, from the secret organizations, trade organizations, 
police, firemen, city, county. State and all states, came pouring 
in. Ministers of all denominations could be seen among the 
patients, some having come from afar to take part in allaying 
the suffering. All feelings between the North and the South 
were forgotten and "carpet-baggers," "scalawags," foreigners, 
— all classes and nationalities thought only of the suffering and 
became brothers. 

"Women of station in society joined in the work and often 
beside them and the religious workers, would toil a former 
"outcast," tending the needs of patients, closing the eyes that 
were blind to earthly scenes, or otherwise assisting in their 
self-sacrificing and volunteer work for others. Many of these 
unselfish ones laid their lives on the altar of sacrifice, perhaps 
after bringing to convalescence many others. 

When, in November, the epidemic was declared to be a 
horrer of the past, the General Council passed resolutions of 
thanks to all the states and countries that had sent succor during 
the disheartening seige. 

People came back much depressed, but Colonel Keating 
tells us that the merchants were only inconvenienced and 
almost uninjured. 

When the year ended confidence had been regained and 
1874 showed noteworthy increase in business improvements, 
but the city government was still a cause of complaint. A 

♦Keating. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 159 

writer in "Old Folks Record" in 1874, said: "We need legis- 
lative reform. Our city government should be simplified. As 
it is, too many members of our city legislature have axes to 
grind, and they are ground at the expense of their fellow 
citizens." This writer advocated one tax-collector instead of 
four or five, and continued: "We could dispense with some of 
our courts and incidental expenses. We could reform our 
jury system, and in this particular save thousands of dollars. 

"Let our city and county be managed as a frugal farmer 
manages his farm, and there will be no drawback in their 
progress. 

"Let our people be persuaded that our offices and courts 
and government are for them, and not for the officers." 

The city's monthly outlay at that time was said to exceed 
$35,000, much more than the depleted and debt-encumbered 
corporation could afford. Taxes continued to be a great bur- 
den and for 1873 amounted to $4.00 on the $100, on a tax 
valuation of $28,217,000, and in addition to this extortionate 
levy, the mayor was demanding the collection of $977,000 of 
back taxes. For this purpose the General Council issued dis- 
tress warrants, after the United States court had issued a writ 
of mandamus against the city for $514,900, for the Nicholson 
pavement contractor before mentioned. 

Crime still stalked through the town, but the officers had 
grown very determined and were doing what they could to 
lessen its evils by enforcing strict laws against carrying con- 
cealed weapons and bringing all criminals to justice. Judge 
Flippin again lectured to the city and appealed to the sense 
of civic pride and right in the citizens to do all in their power 
to eradicate crime and build up poor Memphis, who had had 
many terrible experiences to hold her back on the road to 
progress. 

Confidence between the white people and negroes was 
gaining ground and the latter had learned to a great extent 
that their former owners were not enemies, though many of 
them had never thought so. Occasional riots were threatened 
and a serious one in 1874 occurred in Gibson County in which 
several negroes were killed. 



160 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Memphis people held a mass meeting to denounce this 
affair and try to establish harmony, especially now that the 
state had returned to Democratic government and conditions 
generally had improved or, at least were improving, in the 
South. At this meeting were many former Confederate soldiers 
and some of the speakers were ex-President Jefferson Davis, 
Isham G. Harris and General Forrest. 

Finances did not improve and the city debt loomed, a 
bigger obligation than Memphis could pay, and it was growing 
greater all the time. 



CHAPTER VIII 



John Loagiie, Mayor. Financial Difficulties. Census of 1875. 
New Charter. The Flippin Administration. Schemes to 
Retire City Debt. Sale of Navy Yard. Surrender of 
Charter Considered. Great Epidemic of Yellow Fever 
Begins. Panic and Stampede of Citizens. Terrible Scenes 
of Suffering and Death. Howard Association and Relief 
Committees. Heroism of the Workers. The Tragedy of 
Death and Burial. The Daily Press Faithful. Generosity 
of Non-Residents. Loyal Negro Militia. Death Roll of 
the Howards. End of the Epidemic. Thanksgiving for 
Relief. 



^d OHN LOAGUE, who had succeeded John Johnson as 
^1 mayor, was a good financier and his most earnest work 
^^ in his new office was to reduce Memphis' debt and the 
overwhelming burden of her taxes. In his first message to 
the General Council he set forth in plain figures the enormity 
of the debt which was crushing the town. In a second message 
he questioned the legality of some of the bonds and thought the 
courts could not force Memphis to pay more than she had 
received from them, which would be about forty-two per cent. 
A few months later this determined mayor issued another mes- 
sage in which he "urged the appointment of a commission of 
eminent citizens to unite with the creditors of the city in a 
convention to consider the debt and agree and determine upon 
a plan by which it might be refunded at a rate, below its face 
value, that would bring it within the reach of the city to pay."* 
This plan was agreed upon and Mayor Loague recom- 
mended G. A. Hanson, I. M. Hill, E. M. Apperson, P. C. Bethel, 
J. M. Keating and A. J. Keller for such commissioners. They 
were appointed by the General Council and given power to 
act. 

*Keating. 



162 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

The total debt of the city amounted to $5,651,165.* These 
commissioners went to New York to consult some of the credit- 
ors, but failed to get them to agree to anything less than the 
face value of the bonds. This failure was discouraging but the 
mayor set to work to use strenuous means to lessen the city's 
burdens. After much controversy by and between the General 
Council, even sometimes almost to the point of combat, it is 
recorded, Mr. Loague was authorized "to issue scrip for the 
certificates held by the tax-payers who had paid the Nicholson 
pavement tax. "f 

There were suits then pending in the United States court 
against the city and William ]\I. Randolph was employed to 
defend Memphis. 

Financial difficulties of the Nation coming on at this time, 
the Memphis officials found their task of straightening out home 
affairs all the more perplexing. Of the Country 's trials during 
this decade James Ford Rhodes says: "These five years [1873- 
1878] are a long dismal tale of declining markets, exhaustion 
of capital, a lowering in value of all kinds of property, includ- 
ing real estate, constant bankruptcies, close economy in busi- 
ness and grinding frugality in living, idle mills, furnaces and 
factories, former profit-earning iron mills reduced to the value 
of a scrap-heap, laborers out of employment, reductions of 
wages, strikes and lockouts, the great railroad riots of 1877, 
suffering of the unemployed, depression and despair. "$ 

Financial complications occupied the General Council at 
the expense of other city needs, but some attention was paid 
to sanitation. The neighborhood where yellow fever had 
started in 1873 was cleaned up and the Board of Health exerted 
itself in various directions. 

The County Court, despite the County's financial misfor- 
tunes, purchased the old Overton Hotel for a courthouse and 
voted $20,000 for the building of a new insane asylum, to be 
conducted upon more thoughtful and humane methods than 
formerly. 

A census was taken in 1875 and gave 40,230, an increase 

*Ibid. tibid. 

tRhodes' History of the United States — Volume VII. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 163 

of only four in five years, the smallest gain Memphis had ever 
made in any other five or even one year since her beginning. 
Had it not been for the disastrous epidemic of 1873 the city 
would no doubt have grown as she had heretofore, and as her 
physical situation indicated that she should. But sickness, 
war, misgovernment, abnormal taxes, debt, had discouraged 
the people and they were not as alert and energetic as they 
should have been. After the experience of 1873 the place 
should have been put in thorough sanitary condition, but as 
one summer passed after another and the fever did not return, 
premises, alleys, vacant lots and other localities became unclean 
and general neglect grew from bad to worse with only an 
occasional spurt of activity on the part of the Board of Health. 

Memphis seemed to be rushing pell-mell into ruin from 
many causes. Property-holders were growing or had grown 
indignant at the looseness of municipal management and were 
beginning to assert themselves through the public press and 
otherwise. Most of the office-holders were not tax-payers and 
the majority of the voters owned no property. These, it was 
claimed, thought more of personal gain than of the city's 
good. The rent derived from property in many cases did not 
pay taxes, repairs and insurance. In consequence, persons not 
already property-holders, preferred renting to investing their 
money in Memphis real-estate. Manufacturers were drive q 
away and no inducements were held out to others to come. Few 
buildings were erected and mechanics were idle or left the city. 
Capital and labor both suffered as one necessarily affects the 
other. 

Citizens came to the conclusion that if the city was in such 
a deplorable condition under existing circumstances, surely a 
change was needed. A people's Protective Union was formed, 
and the members recommended reforms for the city govern- 
ment, affecting such items as taxes and their collection, salaries 
and fees of city officials, juries and jury-service, vagrancy, the 
establishment of a reformatory prison and other needs. 

The new charter contained some reforms. For instance, 
a Board of Fire and Police Commissioners were to govern and 
control the police and fire departments and the members were 



164 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

prevented from taking any part, as formerly, in politics, more 
than casting votes at elections. It limited the city tax to $1.60 
and prevented city officials from having any interest in city 
bonds. 

This revised charter was approved by Mayor Loague but 
opposed by the Council, and brought up lively controversies. 
City Attorney G. A. Hanson and Comptroller Newsom did not 
agree in their figures as to the city's indebtedness. Hanson 
reported the debt to be $6,500,000 in round numbers, with an 
interest of $390,000, while Newsom reported it to be 
$5,522,362.22, against which he said were assets amounting to 
$1,675,208.39. The Council was opposed to Attorney Hanson 
and a committee, appointed by it, endorsed NeAvsom's state- 
ment and disputed Hanson's, whereupon the latter resigned. 

The People's Protective Union sent a request, through a 
committee, to the Council to employ a city attorney of high 
grade to handle efficiently the suits and mandamus proceed- 
ings that hovered as dark shadows over the city. Besides this 
request for the appointment of an able lawyer, the committee 
set forth the grievances of the people thus : 

"The financial condition of the city of Memphis has reached 
a crisis, threatening wholesale confiscation, and the expulsion 
of the people from their homes, alarming to every citizen having 
the interest of the city at heart. The remorseless Shylocks 
who speculate in city bonds at twenty-one cents demand their 
payment dollar for dollar and expect by the writ of mandamus 
to override the law limiting the rate of taxation and compel 
the collection of a tax sufficient for its immediate payment. If 
this is the law, and it is to be enforced, it amounts to virtual 
confiscation, and the people, especially the poor, will be turned 
into the streets, and their humble homes, the fruit of years of 
hard toil and frugality, will pass for a mere song into the 
hands of greedy speculators in city bonds. It is well known 
that a large amount of the debt of the city is illegal, and was 
imposed upon a people having no voice in its creation through 
military rule and through the instrumentality of elections held 
in violation of law, and conducted in fraud and violence, while 
a large majority of tax-payers were disfranchised and denied 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 165 

the right of voting upon the very proposition to issue the bonds. 
In the election for the million dollar issue in 1868, some man 
who paid thousands of dollars of taxes annually, was driven 
from the polls with insult when he offered to vote against the 
issue of bonds. A large amount of the debt of the city has 
been created not only without authority, but in positive viola- 
tion of law. Every dollar of the scrip issued by the military 
government, and subsequently funded, is illegal. * * * * Those 
who speculate in the life-blood of the city, and some who 
esteemed it no dishonor to neglect the payment of their private 
debts, prate about the honor and credit of the city, and insist 
upon the 'pound of flesh,' though the operation reduced the 
people to penury and serfdom to the bondholder. Such people 
talk of the innocent holder, as if none but bondholders were 
innocent, and the people a set of knaves, seeking to evade 
the payment of just debts. We proclaim and insist that 
the victimized and plundered people are the innocent parties, 
and the bondholders were bound to know of the fraud and 
outrage perpetrated upon a helpless people." 

Mayor Loague appointed Judge Sam P. Walker to the 
position of city attorney, that able lawyer resigning the chan- 
cellorship to accept it. He took matters seriously in hand 
and won several suits that saved the city thousands of dollars. 
Mayor Loague, in his last report tendered to the city, 
showed how the expense of city government had lessened, and 
the mayor succeeding him, Judge John R. Flippin, and his 
new council, started in with determination for even stricter 
economy and reforms for bringing the city out of her difficul- 
ties. These new officials found affairs worse than Comptroller 
Newsom's report had led them to believe, and nearer the con- 
dition that ex-City Attorney Hanson had declared. Mayor 
Flippin in his first report gave the city a debt at $5,600,000, of 
which $600,000 was matured coupons bearing interest at the 
rate of- seven per cent. The annual interest of the city 
amounted to $350,000, while annual expenses were $300,000. 
In order to meet all the indebtedness for the year and pay- 
expenses it would require $1,400,000, and the city was not 
equal to it.* 

♦Figures quoted in Keathing's History of Memphis. 



166 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Mayor Flippin proposed "to retire all the debt over 
$5,000,000 by delinquent taxes; then from the gross sum 
deduct one third, leaving $3,333,333, fund this in $100 bonds 
due in 30 years, interest on them payable when drawn, as per 
schedule given. From these draw annually paying four per 
cent on numbers drawn, using not less than $140,000 for the 
last ten years."* 

The mayor's plan was much discussed but was thought 
not feasible and was not adopted. Judge Flippin then went 
to New York for the purpose of making a settlement with the 
bond-holders. They agreed to scale at sixty cents on the 
dollar. 

After this compromise the General Council authorized 
the mayor to prepare a bill for the next Legislature for the 
purpose of carrying it out. 

The Navy Yard was sold during this administration, in 
1876, to Amos Woodruff and J. J. McCombs for $117,000, they 
being allowed to give notes from date of purchase, bearing 
six per cent interest. This sale terminated long discussions 
and litigation which had cost Memphis $540,000. t 

The Board, though running on economical lines, allowed a 
few civic improvements. The levee was repaired and added 
to. Main and Madison Streets were partly paved and numerous 
bridges were built throughout the city. But the population 
did not increase, those remaining grew poorer, taxes were 
extortionate without much to show for expenditures, property 
continually decreased in value, the funding of the big debt 
was discouragingly slow, the United States court mandamus 
writs had become urgent and city conditions were as bad as 
could be. 

Mayor Flippin worked zealously trying to get rid of the 
city debt and carried on much correspondence with the bond- 
holders and talked to them personally when possible, making 
trips to Charleston, Baltimore and New York for that purpose. 
By the close of 1877 he had succeeded in funding more than 

♦Keating. 
tKeating. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 167 

$1,000,000 of the obligations, but even this great accomplishment 
was small when compared with all that was to be done. 

Several meetings were held by the Chamber of Commerce 
and the Cotton Exchange to weigh affairs and try to bring 
about a solution and remedy. These meetings brought forth 
suggestions of dissolving the corporation of Memphis, and by 
consulting with able attorneys, Judges J. W. Clapp and H. T. 
Ellett, it was learned that "Public corporations are but part 
of the machinery employed by the sovereign power of the 
State for the purposes of government, and as they are created 
and exist only by law, they may be changed and destroyed 
by law." Also, "The city of Memphis, then, is but the creature 
of the Legislature, and though our State Constitution is pecul- 
iar in its provisions as to the creation and destruction of cor- 
porations, which may or may not include public corporations, 
yet its corporate franchises may, by proper legislation, be 
suspended or taken away; its corporate limits extended or 
curtailed ; its name changed, and its legal existence annihilated 
at the pleasure of the Legislature, and with or without the 
consent of its inhabitants." 

To the questions of citizens as to the consequences ensu- 
ing from such dissolution, the attorneys responded that the 
city's "personal estate vests in this country in the people, and 
in England in the crown, and the debts due to and from the 
corporation are totally extinguished." 

In such case franchises, they said, are taken from the 
corporation dissolved, still, "This rule has been repudiated 
as to private corporations in this state, and almost universally, 
and whilst the franchises of a corporation that has forfeited 
its charter are taken away, the existence of the corporation is 
prolonged by the statute until its debts are paid or its effects 
disposed of for the benefit of its creditors." 

These lawyers gave much study to the questions in con- 
troversy and handed in quite an elaborate document, over their 
signatures, of the digested law. In continuation of the matter 
already quoted, they replied in part : 

"Whilst the Legislature may accept the surrender of its 
charter by a municipal corporation and terminate its legal 



168 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

existence, it can enact no law that impairs the obligation of 
any contract which the municipality has, by authority of law, 
entered into. * * * * Whilst the Legislature may abolish the 
charter of the city of Memphis, it cannot disannul its con- 
tracts, nor cancel its debts, nor can it deprive its creditors of 
the remedies to which they are entitled under their con- 
tracts. It may change the form of the remedy, and may, per- 
haps, substitute one less stringent and efficient, but unless a 
substantial remedy be left, it is apprehended the act would 
be held void by the courts. * * * * When a creditor deals with 
a municipal corporation, he knows that it is the creature of 
the legislative will and may therefore be presumed to take 
the risk of the repeal of the charter and the loss of his remedy 
as a part of the law of his contract. * * * * The municipal 
officers, who were such at the time of the passage of the act 
annulling the charter, might be judicially determined to be 
still in office and subject to the mandates of the courts as to 
the levy and collection of taxes for the purpose of paying 
the debts of the city. * * * * Were the city charter abolished, 
the Legislature, in the exercise of its unrestrained power of 
taxation, except as limited by the State Constitution, could, 
we presume, by special legislation for the territory now within 
the city limits adopt a plan of local taxation sufficient to meet 
the expenses incident to such public regulations as might be 
necessary for the protection of the persons and property of 
the inhabitants, and might, perhaps, if it chose to do so, 
levy a special tax upon such inhabitants, or upon their prop- 
erty and pursuits, for the purpose of providing a fund to pay 
off the indebtedness of the city at the time of the repeal of 
its charter." 

After this answer was received and considered a com- 
mittee consisting of W. P. Proudfit, F. S. Davis, J. W. Clapp, 
H. T. Ellett, B. Bayliss and D. P. Iladden, was appointed to 
formulate a plan of action in conformity therewith. The city 
attorney, S. P. Walker, was requested to draft a bill, which 
he did and presented at a meeting of the Chamber of Com- 
merce, Cotton Exchange, citizens and officials. The caption of 
this bill gives its purport and is as follows: 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 169 

"AN ACT to repeal the charter of certain municipal cor- 
porations, to remand the territory embraced within the cor- 
porate limits of such municipalities to the government of the 
county courts, to enlarge the powers of such county courts 
and to levy and dispose of special local taxes upon the per- 
sons and property located within the territorial limits of such 
municipalities. ' ' 

This bill was approved by three of the committee and 
many others, but the mayor and many with him, repudiated 
such a step on the part of the city. Men spoke for and against 
such action and on a vote being taken the bill was defeated by 
nearly two to one. This vote was reconsidered, however, and 
the committee instructed to have five hundred copies, together 
with the legal opinion of Judges Clapp and Ellett, printed 
and sent to the senators and representatives for their consid- 
eration. The bill was opposed in the Legislature and those 
members attempted to pass another bill appointing a receiver 
for Mempihs, but this failed, as the Governor did not sign it. 

The General Council, most of whom were against dis- 
solving the city government, passed resolutions opposing the 
bill. They were of the opinion that Mayor Flippin was handl- 
ing the enormous debt problem efficiently and that with time, 
judicious perseverance would lift the incubus from Memphis.* 

This by no means ended considerations of dissolving the 
charter and the subject continued to be agitated, especially 
after the United States court issued a peremptory order for 
the Nicholson pavement debt of $200,000 to be paid immedi- 
ately, the money to be obtained by levying a special tax. This 
order aroused the people to frenzy. Indignation meetings were 
held and Major Minor Meriwether, representing the People's 
Protective Association, addressed the General Council, explain- 
ing how impossible it was for the people to meet this and other 
enormous demands. He urged a repeal of the charter as a 
necessity for getting city affairs settled and perhaps keeping 
the people from rebellion. 

Following this were weeks of altercation and reasoning, 

*The description of these proceedings was obtained chiefly 
from Colonel Keating's History of Memphis. 



170 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

during which time it was decided to cut down the salaries of 
city employes from ten to twenty per cent, reduce salaries of 
school-teachers and take salaries entirely away from the Sink- 
ing Fund Commissioners. 

Collection of back taxes was again agitated and the people 
wrangled and planned and blundered until the stealthy yellow 
enemy that had remained away five years, giving the city time 
to rid herself of dirt, came back in the midst of the financial 
confusion, political wrangles, dirty streets, filthy alleys, open 
vaults of putrefaction, stench, and said, "Stop your human 
chatter! After your sinful neclect of God's first law and a 
city's highest need, order and cleanliness, I claim this town 
as mine!" 

Dr. R. W. Mitchell, president of the Board of Health, 
who had been urging and pleading for quarantine and approp- 
riations for sanitary precautions, discouraged by failure to 
obtain any assistance from the General Council, resigned his 
position. When the first suspicious case of fever appeared in 
the city, the officials became alarmed, refused the resignation 
of Dr. Mitchell and agreed to meet his demands. The whole 
city went to work with feverish energy to clean up. Polities, 
debt, disagreements, amusements, business, — everything else 
gave way before fear and efforts to prevent an epidemic. It 
was too late ! 

Reports came daily from New Orleans and other places, 
showing a constant increase in the spread of the disease and 
mortality. Memphis people became excited. Quarantine 
restrictions were enforced and the Board of Health, that had 
so lately begged in vain for assistance and cooperation, now 
had their hands upheld by the General Council and the citi- 
zens. Merchants, who a short while before, had thought they 
could spare no money for anything, subscribed liberally to 
supply the means that the city lacked. 

A steamboatman at the city hospital had a suspicious case of 
illness and on August 2, it was pronounced yellow fever. 
Other cases occurred but were kept suppressed until August 
14, when an Italian snack-house keeper, Mrs. Bionda, was 
reported as having a well-defined case of the dread disease. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 171 

This caused general alarm and many sought safety in flight. 
The day after Mrs. Bionda's case twenty-two others were 
announced and panic ensued. On the following day, the six- 
teenth, thirty-three new cases were reported, and the people 
rushed from the city like mad. Fear, more contagious than 
the disease, possessed men and women, and the predominant 
impulse was to flee. Houses were not only left in haste, but 
many of them were left open, with silver-plate in dining-rooms, 
elegant rugs, curtains, pictures and other valuable furnishings 
forgotten and barely enough clothing taken to supply immed- 
iate needs, while the owners rushed for trains that could not 
supply all the demands. Seats, aisles, platforms and roofs 
of all cars were crowded and men who could not obtain 
entrance by doors climbed through car-windows, despite all 
protests from people in the packed seats. Courtesy was for- 
gotten and often, even the common feelings of humanity. Self 
preservation reigned as law. 

Policemen were stationed at trains to enforce order, but 
when men found their entrance to cars interfered with they 
eared not for law and order; they considered that life hung 
in the balance, and many obtained admittance for themselves 
and families by the use of fire-arms. The officers saw the 
futility of trying to keep people back and they, themselves in 
sympathy with the crowd, simply tried to keep order until the 
trains would push out. And push out they did, more packed 
than they had ever been before, as fast as managers could get 
them ready, though all too inadequate was the service. 

Those who could not get away on trains left in carriages, 
buggies, wagons, vans, — even drays were pressed into passen- 
ger service, while others walked, not even knowing where they 
were going, their only object being to get away from the 
pestilence. Many w^ho would have gone could not because 
themselves or families were overtaken by the now striding 
plague. Some, however, were not even held by family ties 
and one of the saddest pictures, of the whole horrible time that 
we contemplate at this distant day is that of persons leaving 
relatives and friends to suffer and die unattended save by 
the noble strangers who stayed or came to help while others 



172 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

fled. It is recorded that even men left their wives and fathers 
their families and a few, away at the time of the stampede 
refused to come to afflicted wife or children or both. It is 
pitiful when narrow human nature supplants the nobler 
nature of man made in God's image, but when we do behold that 
Image, the contemplation exalts even human nature in our 
minds. Though there were a few deserters, we are told that 
no wife deserted her husband and, at a later time Governor 
Marks, in his address made at the laying of the corner-stone 
of the Memphis Custom House, said: ''In the history of the 
pestilence I read that parents deserted their children, chil- 
dren their parents, husbands wives, but that no wife deserted 
her husband. * * * * When you erect your monument to com- 
menorate the heroes of the pestilence of 1878, in justice to the 
noble women of Memphis, let it be written upon that monu- 
ment that 'Thermopylae had her deserter, but the wives of 
Memphis had none.' " 

As the disease spread here other towns and cities became 
alarmed for their own safety and quarantine laws caused 
many Memphis refugees to be turned away, in some places 
even shot-guns being used to show the determination of the 
inhabitants. Many of these rejected and helpless safety-seek- 
ers camped in the woods, without necessary equipment for 
the crudest comforts, or later joined one of the camps pro- 
vided for refugees. 

By August 26, the rush from the city was over, though 
some still sought safety in unquarantined places. The panic 
being over, those left settled down to the inevitable. Business 
and traffic of course, were paralyzed, streets deserted, houses 
desolate, many standing open and none properly protected 
against dust or thieves. Politics, the $5,000,000 debt, inade- 
quate or extortionate taxes, cries of people for improvements 
or justice, — these and all other things were forgotten, and 
only the alleviation of human suffering or the saving of human 
life was considered. 

In one week the population had been reduced to 19,600, 
14,000 of these being negroes. Of the less than 6,000 white 
people 4,204 died, and of the negroes 946 died. Up to the 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 173 

epidemic of this year colored people had been thought to be 
immune, and even then the purely African type usually 
escaped and when they had it the disease did not prove fatal. 
The hybrid part of the population was not so fortunate and 
many of them succumbed. About two hundred and fifty white 
people escaped the disease, most of these having had it in 
previous epidemics. 

On the 17th of August the Citizens Relief Com- 
mittee organized and itsi members were soon doing what they 
could to relieve the stricken, keep order and take systematic 
charge of all money and provisions sent to them. The Howard 
Association was called together and thes)e good men were soon 
hand in hand with the Relief Committee in their brave work. 

Many people of this generation do not even know what 
the Howard Association was and it is but fair to devote a little 
space to them in passing. This organization originated in 
New Orleans in 1853, among the clerks of N. B. Kneass. The 
mother of two of these young men had been a resident of San 
Domingo where yellow fever was a common malady and she 
had learned to treat it successfully. When the epidemic 
afflicted New Orleans in 1853, these young men went about 
distributing the medicines prepared by this good woman, giv- 
ing much relief, though that year claimed 7,970 victims in the 
Crescent City. Other young men joined these, some from 
wealthy families, and they organized under the name of the 
Howard Association, choosing the name of the greatest phil- 
anthropist, John Howard. As the Association grew, physicians, 
nurses and medicine were furnished by it and agencies were 
formed in all towns where there with liklihood of the yellow 
pest. The sole purpose of the association was to aid in this one 
disease and whenever it made its appearance Howard mem- 
bers assembled for work. In 1867 a call was made in Mem- 
phis for this association and members met to form a working 
order in the Bluff City. These first Memphis members were : 
R. "W. Ainslie, William Everett, H. Lonergan, John Heart, 
C. T. Geoghegan, J. K. Pritchard, A. D. Langstaff, J. B. Was- 
son, J. P. Gallagher, Jack Home, E. J. Mansford, John Park, 
Rev. R. A. Simpson, Dr. P. P. Fraime, J. P. Robertson, T. C. 



174 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

McDonald, J. T. Collins, E. M. Levy, W. A. Strozzi, E. J. 
Corson, Dr. A. Sterling, A. A. Hyde, G. C. Wersch, W. S. Ham- 
ilton, A. H. Gresham, Fred Gutherz, W. J. B. Lonsdale and 
J, G. Lonsdale, Sr. 

As soon as these men were organized they notified the 
public that they were ready to furnish necessities, which 
they did as long as the fever lasted. When that year's pestil- 
ance was over the members adjourned, subject to call when- 
ever yellow fever sufferers claimed their services again. A 
charter was not granted to the Memphis association until 1869. 

As has been related, these self-sacrificing men were next 
called together for work in 1873, when the few members 
remaining responded, new members joined and they went to 
work. 

The next call came in 1878, when, on the fourteenth day 
of August, the members again answered roll-call, added new 
names to the roll and, under the first vice-president, A. D. 
Langstaff, launched upon their duties, to face the worst epi- 
demic the heroic men of any of the Howard associations had 
yet encountered. According to the Howard custom, the city 
was divided into districts and members assigned to each. Cases 
from each district were reported at headquarters, each inves- 
tigated at once and the necessary supplies were furnished. 

The first week after the fever started in Memphis in 1878, 
1,500 were reported sick, ten dying every day. The second week 
registered 3,000 cases, with fifty deaths a day. The following 
week showed a still greater mortality, which continued to 
increase until the middle of September, when the average 
deaths per day were two hundred, with between 8,000 and 
10,000 sick. September fourteenth was the day of greatest 
mortality, when considerable over two hundred deaths were 
reported. 

The plague had a fearful hold and threatened to depop- 
ulate the town. As such stupendous increase came fear seized 
physicians and nurses, which caused them to succumb more 
easily to the disease than at first, and so their ranks were 
rapidly thinned. There were much uncertainty about methods. 
Some patients died under treatment that seemed to cure 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 175 

others. Doctors consulted, but there were many disagree- 
ments and much of the treatment was guess work or experi- 
ment, but they worked conscientiously and did the best they 
could. 

Dr. Robert W. Mitchell, an experienced and scientific 
physician, had a corps of efficient workers under him and they 
had great success in treating the disease. Dr. G. B. Thornton, 
in charge of the City Hospital, was much overworked, as well 
as those who aided him. How those faithful hospital doctors 
and nurses did work, stopping only when the disease they 
were fighting claimed them for its own. Doctors, nurses, the 
organization workers, ministers, priests, church sisters and 
other volunteers worked, forgetting exhaustion and their own 
needs in trying to make up for the inadequacy of their forces. 

By the last of August the workers were falling rapidly, 
some of them going until they fell prostrate. By the middle of 
September nineteen Howards were dead or sick. The noble 
President of the Association, Butler P. Anderson, who had 
frone to Grenada to help the sufferers there, had returned to 
Memphis, taken the fever and died. Mr. Langstaff was 
stricken and his place was filled by ex-Mayor John Johnson. 
Early in October only three officers of the Howard Associa- 
tion were on duty and many members of the other working orders 
were down or gone to rest after giving their lives for others. 

The Citizens Relief Committee was conspicuous for its 
broadcast work, as were the Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights 
of Pythias, Knights of Honor, the Father Matthew Society, 
the Hebrew Hospital Association, the Typographical Union, 
Telegraphers, Southern Express Company, the railroad com- 
panies and many private volunteer workers, — physicians, 
nurses and ministers of all denominations.* 

Poor and rich alike accepted the services of these laborers 
and indeed were at their mercy. The patients were no longer 
patrons, they were all the children of the relief societies and 
these organizations were supplied by the world. 

*Out of ten members of the Odd Fellow<? Relief Committee by the 
sixth week of the epidemic only one was left, John A. Linkhauer, and 
he carried on the relief work alone. 



176 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Memphis seemed a doomed city. Her streets were 
deserted except for the nurses, doctors and occasional other 
pedestrians, and it has been said that even dogs, cats, rats 
and other animals became so oppressed by the general gloom 
that they left by hundreds. Many of course starved, as the 
few people left were so intent in their ministrations to human 
charges that they usually forgot the animals. 

At midday the streets showeli life when negroes and some 
white people went to the relief headquarters for daily rations. 
When they were gone the death-like silence fell again and 
one man said his own footsteps on the pavement would some- 
times startle him. 

Doctors met at night for consultation and this put a bit 
of social refreshment into their overworked lives. Their days 
were ghastly enough with the moaning, dying and dead on 
every hand, the deserted, hot, dusty streets, the oppressive 
atmosphere, even worse than that of a battle-field after the 
battle, the sorrowful, hopeless faces of convalescents, bereft 
of whole families, perhaps, little children left orphans and 
penniless, who so lately had been blest with homes, with all 
that that word implies, — gloom, devastation, pall, — it was more 
terrible than any of the other discouraging experiences these 
heroic men and women had been through during the past two 
decades. Human life seemed so pitiful, so useless at times, 
and yet they worked, these men and women, hoping for the 
end and for brighter days after all the horrible gloom. Can 
Memphis ever be grateful enough to those devoted souls who 
dropped at their posts, succumbed or rose from their beds, 
still weak from the ravages of the pest, and went to work 
again. Occasionally they met in the silent streets, spoke, shook 
hands, compared notes, laughed, maybe shed tears, saw the 
wagon-loads of piled-up coffins go by to await their turns at 
the cemeteries for interment, paid little heed to the irreverence 
with which these were treated, passed on and worked! 

Sometimes it was many hours before bodies could be 
buried, owing to the difficulty of getting men to dig the graves. 
These grave-diggers were a courageous few and their work 
during the dark days of 1878 deserves to be remembered by 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 177 

Memphis people. All day bodies were deposited in the grave- 
yards, sometimes buried with funeral rites and sometimes 
without. Catholic priests were vigilant in this respect and 
many bodies Catholic and Protestant, received a last religious 
service from watchful priests, that would otherwise have gone 
into their last earthly beds unattended. 

Colonel Keating says that the Elmwood Cemetery bell 
"was for a long time tolled by a lovely girl, who for weeks 
was her father's only help. She kept the registry of the dead, 
and knew what the havoc of the fever was ; yet she remained 
at her self -selected post, her father's courageous clerk, until 
the fell disease overcame her physical energies. But she 
recovered, and after a few days resumed her place, keeping 
tally of the dead until the plague itself was numbered with 
the things that were. No bell save that of death was tolled. 
The churches were closed." 

While these awful tales told of the past harrow us to a 
degree, there was a time when they were in the present, — 
now ! and the now of a horrible time is much more terrible than 
future generations, told of the happenings, can realize. 

Many other places were visited by the plague that same 
year, notably New Orleans and Grenada, Mississippi, but 
Memphis paid the greatest penalty of all. Colonel Keating 
calls this 187.8 epidemic "the horror of the century, the most 
soul-harrowing episode in the history of the English-speaking 
people in America," and he had reason to know of it as he 
stayed through the whole terrible siege, being one of the few 
who escaped having the disease. 

This splendid man, who has preserved a history of the 
plague for future generations, is one of the heroes of Memphis. 
If he had done nothing else for this city than what he did 
during the epidemics she has endured, he would deserve a 
monument. 

In this particular year, as the populace fled for safety 
and the disease progressed. Colonel Keating felt that it was 
essential to keep the world informed of each day's occurrences, 
so he kept his paper alive in addition to his offices as member 
of the Citizens Relief Committee. Men stayed with him on 



178 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the press work, brave men, deliberately facing danger that 
the outside world might be served. Colonel Keating says of 
this class of workers: "The printers and telegraphers suffered 
more than any other classes. * * * * The nature of their 
employment exposed them more than any other classes, save 
the doctors and nurses, to the fever poison. They fell very 
fast. Only one of all those employed by the telegraph com- 
pany escaped, and of the editors, compositors and pressmen of 
the daily press, only one escaped of the Ledger, four of the 
Avalanche and two of the Appeal. Their numbers thus so 
rapidly decreased, these heroic men continued not only to 
fulfil the duties expected of them by a public, impatient for 
every fact and incident of the epidemic, but nursed their sick 
and buried their dead. Though often wearied to exhaustion, 
ready to fall for want of strength, they continued to send 
messages, and print papers and to succor those who had 
claims upon them." 

This is a tribute to his co-workers, truly earned, but he 
fails to tell of his individual work. He also was often "wearied 
to exhaustion," but he did not falter. His history does not 
record the day that he went to the Appeal office and found that 
of the force he was the only one left. Other duties as well as 
press work were demanding him but he said, "The paper must 
be printed, and I am the only one who can do it. ' ' His message 
was one that the world was expecting and he felt the urgency 
of giving it. Memphis refugees looked for it as they did for 
nothing else. Each day the readers learned what was being 
done in the unfortunate city and the lists of dead and conval- 
escent were eagerly scanned in Canada and all the states. 
People wept or rejoiced as they read names of relatives or 
friends in one list or the other and waited impatiently for the 
next day's intelligence. Colonel Keating did not allow them 
to be disappointed. He wrote his editorial, the reports and 
all matter needed, set the type, worked the press, printed the 
sheets, folded them and gave his small but valuable sheet to 
the waiting world that day and other days. 

"Worse indeed," says James Ford Rhodes, "than the 
desolation of the war was that of the Negro-carpet-bag rule 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 179 

from 1868 to 1874," and poor Memphis, who had suffered 
them all, in 1878 could say, ''and even worse than carpet-bag 
rule is this awful pestilence!" 

But the heavier the gloom the more beautiful are the 
rays of good that filter through its depressing weight. The 
rays in those dark days that made themselves manifest were 
unselfishness and brotherly sympathy. Selfish humanity goes 
on in its daily business, considering only its own welfare, but 
when a great human crisis comes the merely human, selfish 
nature is replaced by the god-nature that asserts itself. At 
such times people become brothers in the true sense. 

In 1878, when our country and the world learned of the 
terrible strait Memphis and the South was in, all animosity, all 
sectional feeling and every other sentiment save that of sym- 
pathy, were forgotten and help such as the outside world 
could give, poured in to strengthen the efforts of those brave 
souls who had sacrificed themselves to the cause of suffering 
humanity. Money was sent from near and far. The Howard 
Association alone used $500,000 during that one epidemic. 
They employed 2,900 nurses and furnished doctors, nurses and 
supplies to 15,000 people. The Citizens Relief Committee spent 
$93,914.11 and issued 745,735 rations. Altogether during that 
siege Memphis received nearly a million dollars in money, 
clothing Medicine and other supplies. The world contributed 
to the entire South that year $4,548,700, for the relief of 
yellow-fever patients. 

One train came to Memphis loaded almost entirely with 
coffins, a grewsome but very acceptable gift at that time. All 
sorts of people and all sorts of institutions were interested in 
the various contributions. Many were collections of mayors 
of cities and towns, others of churches of all denominations, 
of secret societies, men's and women's clubs and church socie- 
ties. Lecturers gave lectures and artists gave concerts or other 
entertainments for the sufferers. Contributions came accom- 
panied by letters from "young ladies;" "young men," "the 
children;" "little girls;" "colored contributions;" 
"employees;" "ministers;" "soldiers;" "Jews;" "Quakers;" 



180 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

and some of the contributions were the proceeds of special 
sales for the purpose. 

Nashville came to the aid of the children who had been 
orphaned and these little ones were put into her asylums or 
into private homes, where some have grown up as the adopted 
and loved children of the people who took them. 

Some misguided human beings commit depredations even 
in the midst of distress, but fortunately these are a minority. 
Some of these weeds of humanity appeared in Memphis during 
those direful days, and planned for much mischief to gain 
their selfish ends. The negroes, the ignorant mass of whom 
had been given such false ideas of their importance, were now 
instigated by a few white men to take possession of the com- 
missary department and to overpower the white people. They 
were told and made to believe that the fact of their not having 
the fever as white people did, proved that God meant for them 
to have the land and that they could take it now that the white 
people were so weakened and helpless. It is easy to imagine 
the added horrors if these fiends and foragers could have got 
the upper hand. But they reckoned more foolishly than they 
knew and were defeated by the vigilance of the Citizens Relief 
Committee and the Howard Association, both of which organ- 
izations were most looked to for succor and protection. 

The police and fire forces were so reduced that the asso- 
ciations had to provide for guarding the city. Some thieves 
stole Howard nurse badges and so were enabled to enter homes 
and looted them, but steps were quickly taken by the Relief 
Committee to drive them from town. The police were 
instructed to arrest all persons on the streets after nine o'clock 
at night, unless the pedestrians could give satisfactory reasons 
for being abroad. At Court Square were stationed two negro 
military companies composed of trustworthy members of the 
race. At Camp Joe Williams the Bluff City Grays were placed 
with instructions to be ready to take the train kept for them 
immediately, if they were needed. The highly trained Chicka- 
saw guards were ordered to Grand Junction, where they were 
to be in readiness if called. A Raleigh company of over a 
hundred volunteered their services when needed, and another 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 181 

company south of Memphis volunteered and kept in readiness 
for the call. In the city were not more than one hundred 
white men that could have been mustered but they were to 
be relied upon. If the necessity arose for their services the 
signal was to be three taps of the fire-bell, when they were to 
hasten to the express office on North Court Street. 

One day, when men and women were lined up for their 
daily apportionment, a bullying black, instigated by a white 
ruffian, and several of his own color near, attacked the colored 
sentry at the commissary entrance. It was probably the 
beginning of a general rush to overpower the small force at 
headquarters, but the sentry was not to be intimidated, and 
immediately shot his assailant. Then arose a wail of women 
and howl of men that portended trouble, but the negro soldiers 
rushed to the scene. The mob soon comprehended that these 
soldiers were for order, and in nowise inclined to join in any 
irregularity, so they were checked in the very beginning of 
their uprising. The disturbance brought out the members of 
the Relief Committee who were in the building, and General 
Luke E. Wright, one of the most earnest of the self-sacrificing 
band of workers, raising his voice above the Bedlam of tongues, 
thanked the sentry for his prompt action and then, turning 
to the soldiers, commended them for their soldierly behavior. 
He then told the crowd that any depredations from thieves 
or any other attempted mob violence would be met as sum- 
marily as in this case, and that in a very short while military 
enough could be called to destroy their whole force. It is 
recorded that the white man who urged the negro to make 
his attack, disappeared, and was never heard from again. 

This occurrence, with the assurance that court, or no 
court, lawlessness was not to be tolerated, brought about a 
beneficent result and the would-be looters knew that although 
the respectable element was small they were determined and 
able to defend themselves. 

It was unfortunate that those who were working so unsel- 
fishly to save their fellows and the life of the city, and who 
were so sorely needed for their daily tedious rounds, should 
have the additional responsibility of keeping order. One can 



182 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

not but wonder that at such a time there could be human 
beings so low as to add crime to universal sorrow and help- 
lessness, but weeds flourish in all sorts of soil. There seems 
to be no doubt that if it had not been for the vigilance of the 
Relief Committee a riot would have added to the horrors of 
the city, perhaps ending in its total destruction, for when 
useless, non-producing ignorance gets the upper hand, 
temporary liberty is only license and during the period of such 
license it knows no cessation nor feeling of compassion or 
order. 

Memphis can scarcely realize the debt of gratitude she 
owes to such men as General Wright, Colonel Keating, Mr. 
Langstaff, Dr. Mitchell, Dr. Thornton, and the scores of noble 
souls who stayed and actually saved the city for future useful- 
ness. Fortunately Colonel Keating has preserved for us the 
names of the men and women who worked and died and worked 
and lived for Memphis in those strange dark days. 

The commissary department was so well managed and the 
outside world so generous that all the patients and others in 
the city were supplied with necessities and even luxuries such 
as ice, fruit, wine and other sick-room supplies were not want- 
ing. The efficient men who had distribution in charge so 
directed that, as Colonel Keating says, "every pound and 
ounce of food or bushel or cord of fuel or suit or part of a 
suit of clothes was accounted for." By this system the bounty 
of the states and Europe was not wasted and nourishment and 
supplies went where it was intended that they should. The 
commissary clerks died rapidly but, as in the ranks of battle, 
their places would be filled, though the recruits would often 
have to serve day and night to supply the demands. The men 
who gave their time and sometimes their lives to this work 
had no recompense save that of the consciousness of doing 
what they could to help others. 

By October 7, new cases of the fever had fallen to fifty- 
seven and deaths on that day to twenty-four, so the Howards 
having, what with other organizations, more supplies than 
were needed for the Memphis demands, President Langstaff 
organized relief trains to be run on the Memphis & Charleston, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 183 

Mississippi & Tennessee, and Louisville, Nashville & Great 
Southern, to supply calls from surrounding towns. These 
trains carried physicians, nurses, medical supplies and pro- 
visions. The Association had done some work for outsiders 
before, but not until the plague had abated in the larger city 
had they been able to take many supplies for other places. 

As October advanced the fearful heat abated, cases con- 
tinued to diminish and the faithful few who had been keeping 
the world informed were able to say that the siege was 
almost over. On the twenty-ninth of this month the Board of 
Health declared the epidemic at an end. The nurses were 
paid and discharged; the physicians also dismissed; the medi- 
cal department and its agencies closed. Some cases occurred 
later but they were scattered, — just remnants of the awful 
visitation. However, so long as there was a need for help it 
was supplied, although organized work of the associations 
was closed. 

The Howards who reported for duty and then faithfully 
fulfilled that duty were, as given by Colonel Keating: A. D. 
Langstaff, W. J. Smith, J. H. Edmundson, J. H. Smith, John 
Johnson, A. M. Stoddard, J. W. Cooper, B. P. Anderson,* W. 
D. McCallum,* Louis Frierson, D. G. Reahardt, W. S. Rogers, 
F. F. Bowen, J. G. Lonsdale,* E. B. Mansford,* N. D. Menkin,* 
J. T. Moss, S. M. Jobe,* R. P. Waring, J. Kohlberg, Charles 
Howard, J. W. Page, T. R. Waring, P. W. Semmes, W. A. 
Holt, E. B. Foster,* J. W. Heath,* Fred Cole,* A. F. C. Cook,* 
W. S. Anderson, C. L. Staffer, W. Finnic. The honorary mem- 
bers who reported for duty were : Dr. Luke P. Blackburn of 
Kentucky, Major W. T. Walthall, Captain P. R. Athy, and 
the Reverends W. E. Boggs, S. Landrum* and E. C. Slater.* 

The surviving members of the Relief Committee were: 
Luke E. Wright, D. T. Porter, J. M. Keating, James S. Pres- 
tidge, Ed. Whitmore, W. W. Thatcher, Casey Young, C. F. 
Conn, D. F. Goodyear and Captain J. C. Maccabe. The mem- 
bers of this committee who gave their lives were : Charles G. 

*Died from the fever. 



184 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Fisher, J. G. Lonsdale, Jr., William Willis, S. M. Jobe and the 
Reverend Doctor Slater.* 

The ordeal was over but there was another ordeal to come ! 
People began coming home. Nearly all of them wore black 
and the crowded cars were as sombre in appearance as in 
feeling. The city was more desolate than ever before and the 
inhabitants hardly knew how to take up the threads of life 
again. So many homes were wrecked, all had borne losses. 
Thanks to the vigilance of the good people who had stayed, 
few houses had been molested and many that had been left 
open had been found closed and so saved from thieves, dust 
and weather. 

The order of the time was sadness, but human nature is 
plastic and easily shapes itself to circumstances. Interests 
came back, threads that had been entirely lost were taken up 
again and Memphis became an active community once more, 
though much reduced in the number of her inhabitants. Once 
more the business wheels began to revolve and city officials 
turned from the work of getting their homes started again to 
municipal affairs. If these had been staggering before they 
seemed dead now. 

On Thanksgiving Day, November 28, a mass-meeting was 
held, when public acknowledgment was made and thanks 
tendered to the world for the help so lately extended to stricken 
Memphis, and especially to those noble men and women who 
had given their lives and labors. 

*The account of this epidemic is gathered chiefly from Colonel 
Keating's history of that year's dreadful experience, a remarkable 
record valuable to Memphis for all time, and from conversations with 
people who remained here during the siege or were among the 
refugees. It would take a volume like Colonel Keating's own to 
do justice to the terrible catastrophe. 



> CHAPTER IX 



Debt and Disaster Follow the Fever. Surrender of the City 
Charter. The Taxing District Act. Struggle with Cred- 
itors. How Memphis had been Robbed. The Taxing Dis- 
trict Officials. How Memphis was Redeemed. Another 
Epidemic Breaks Out. Efficient Sanitary Measures Dis- 
cussed. The Meeting of Refugees in St. Louis, Colonel 
Waring Plans Sewer System. Work on the Sewers Begun. 
Character of the System. The People Take Heart. Pro- 
gress of Reconstructing the City Government. D. P. 
Hadden, President. The Old Debt Refunded. New Water 
System Established. Artesian Wells Sunk. 



AFTER domestic and business affairs were again fairly 
launched, more attention was paid to sanitation than 
had been before, and there was certainly much to be 
done in this line. The city had little money to use, as her 
repeated calamities had left her bankrupt and, under the bur- 
den of an enormous debt, — the only thing that had not 
decreased during the plague, — that hung over her like a great 
pall. 

It was evident that under the then existing government 
there was no way of escaping the Tennessee and United States 
writs of mandamus, which were demanding all the taxes col- 
lected and would leave nothing for carrying on the city, nor 
allow her anything with which to take precautions against 
future scourges of disease. Creditors became clamorous for 
their money, despite the general mourning and financial embar- 
rassment of the people, and men saw that nothing short of 
complete change in government would or could work out a 
solution and get the disabled town in condition to escape anni- 
hilation. 

The ablest men in the city discussed the matter and a 



186 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

meeting was called when people listened to a bill that had 
been prepared by Colonel George Gantt, and a discussion in 
which the true state of affairs was set forth and a dissolution of 
the charter earnestly recommended. 

The bill drafted before the epidemic by S. P. Walker was 
reexamined and revised by able legal men, prominently among 
them Judge C. W. Heiskell and Colonel Gantt. The new bill 
as revised, was adopted and ordered presented to the mem- 
bers-elect of the Legislature, for their consideration. These 
members had been elected with a view to their approval of 
the bill and now they were urged to push it through immedi- 
ately. 

On January 29, 1879, the bill was passed, but not approved 
by Governor Marks until January 31. During this delay of 
two days Memphis officials resigned and the city government 
became thoroughly disorganized. 

Humiliations seemed to pile up for poor Memphis. Now 
she was not even a city, — had been reduced to a Taxing Dis- 
trict. Her charter of incorporation passed in 1826, and 
approved and extended at later intervals, had been dissolved, 
her population "resolved back into the body of the state," 
her offices all abolished and her municipal affairs were to be man- 
aged b ythe state. But it has been shown how unsettled condi- 
tions during and after the war, fraud, misgovernment and pestil- 
ence had made such ravages on the town that she had been 
left stranded and the Taxing District Act* seemed the only 
lever to assist in setting her again afloat. 

This new ])ill provided that taxes for the support of the 
government of the Taxing District "shall be imposed directly 
by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee and not 
otherwise." But an amendment of tliis Actf gave the Taxing 
District more power to handle her own affairs. 

Instead of a Board of Mayor and Aldermen or the General 
Council, as heretofore, the Taxing District was to be regulated 
and administered by the "Legislative Council of the Taxing 
District," to consist of "the commissioners of the fire and 

♦Capter XI of the Acts of the Legislature of 1879, p. 15. 
tChap. LXXXIV, of the Acts of the Legislature of 1879, p. 98. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 187 

police board and the supervisors of the board of public works." 

Provision was made for "A board of health, to consist of 
the chief of police, a health officer and one physician, * * * * 
who shall be ex officio president of the board." 

A board of public works, consisting of five supervisors, 
was also provided for. 

Section 3, of this bill defined the powers of the govern- 
ment of the Taxing District, which were much the same as those 
of the former city, giving "power over all afi'airs in the taxing 
district in which the peace, safety and general welfare of the 
inhabitants is interested." 

The President of the Board of Fire and Police Commis- 
sioners was also judge of the police court and tried all offences 
against the District ordinances. He was also a justice of the 
I)eace, having criminal jurisdiction within the limits of the 
District. When the same act was an offense against the State 
and District, he had the right to try both offenses ; when against 
the state only he could fine, if the party submitted, otherwise 
the accused was held to the criminal court. 

Section 4, defined the powers and restrictions of the Legis- 
lative Council, this being "restricted to the business alone of 
making ordinances or local laws for the Taxing District, except 
as hereinafter provided." 

Section 5, fixed the salary of the president at $2,000 per 
annum, demanding that he "shall devote his entire time and 
attention to the duties of his office." This $2,000 was to be 
his only compensation, any fees that he might make as justice 
of the peace, to be credited on his salary "and if such fees 
amount to $2,000 or more per annum, he shall receive no other 
compensation."* The salaries of the commissioners are also 
provided for and fixed at $500 per annum. 

Section 5, also provided the number of fire and police com- 
missioners, their ages, duties and mode of appointment. They 
were authorized to elect a president from their number after 
each biennial election, such president to be the executive officer 
of the Taxing District. The said commissioners were also 

*Tlie first part of this paragraph is taken from the original 
Act, and the latter part from the Amendatory Act. 



188 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

authorized to appoint a secretary at a yearly salary of $1,800, 
and they were given "power to appoint all officers and subor- 
dinates in the police and fire service, including the Chief of 
Police, and to suspend and discharge the same at will." Also 
to make rules for the discipline of policemen and firemen. 

In Section 6, the Commissioners are given supervision over 
streets, drains, sewers and all sanitary measures, lighting, 
bridges, wharves, etc., and are authorized to "employ a com- 
petent civil engineer at a salary not exceeding $2,000 per 
annum. 

The remaining sections, with the amendments, elaborate 
on the duties of the Commissioners and all officials, their oaths, 
elections, levy of taxes for streets, hospital purposes, wharfage, 
contracts and other Taxing District necessities. 

Judge C. W. Heiskell gives a comprehensive statement of 
the Taxing District and its government in a few words, as 
follows : 

This government is simply an agent of the state govern- 
ment, without the power of credit or taxation, and the evils 
consequent thereto. It owns no property, except for govern- 
mental purposes alone. It can issue no bonds and has no 
power to pay them if they are issued. It contracts no debt, 
except as against particular taxes levied by the state itself, 
to pay them year by year. It therefore pays as it goes — the 
only true policy for individuals and states. What improve- 
ments it makes it pays for, and if it has no money to pay, it 
waits till it has. Launched under such auspices, it is hoped 
that it will prove a lasting blessing, and that economy, honesty 
and enterprise, cleanliness and sanitation, good streets, and 
an efficient fire and police protection, wall close its gates on 
the pestilence forever, and open wide the doors of health and 
lasting prosperity. 

Creditors were not pleased at this new state of Memphis 

affairs and attempted to test this new law creating taxing dis- 
tricts in every court until the Supreme Court of the United 
States declared it entirely constitutional. Colonel Gantt 
worked hard to gain this opinion and many declared that 
his argument before the United States Supreme Court on the 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 189 

constitutionality of the law establishing taxing districts, 
turned the scales that logically compelled the Judicial finding. 

This new settlement brought great relief to Memphis 
people and assured them of more time and money for civic 
improvements and defense against future attacks of pestilence. 

Doctor Porter said of the new form of government: "The 
object in creating the Taxing District was not to repudiate the 
debt of the old city of Memphis, but to have a cheap and 
efficient system of government, so as to put the municipality in 
a good sanitary condition, pave the streets, and enable us to 
pay that debt upon terms that may be agreed on by the com- 
missioners that may be appointed, and the creditors." 

When the bondholders could no longer mandamus the 
citizens of Memphis to provide for their improvident debts, 
they petitioned the General Assembly of the state to give them 
power to collect their money, in which petition they stated that 
their debts were lawfully created and that "there is no sub- 
stantial ground on which it can be claimed that such debts, 
or any part or portion of any of them are not justly owing." 

In the cross-petition of the citizens to that of the bond- 
holders, and in response to the above charge, they answered: 
"There is much of the debt that is not justly owing, but very 
largely fraudulent. As a sample, we submit the following state- 
ments : 

"First Statement — On the 10th of June, 1868, Joseph A. 
Mabry, holding $275,000 of city script, and others holding large 
amounts, submitted a written proposition to the acting mayor to 
accept city bonds for their debts, giving $65 of script for each 
$100 of bonds, a loss to the city of 35 cents on the dollar, when 
the amount paid for the indebtedness was not exceeding 30 
cents for a dollar, thus making a $1000 bond cost $216. This 
proposition was accepted, and it is stated that the arrangement 
was consummated, without any authority from the Board of 
Mayor and Aldermen. This fact appears from the report of a 
committee raised by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen in 1872, 
four years after the transaction. That report is in these words : 

" 'Your committee are unable to find on the records of the 
city any resolution authorizing such contract, nor does it 



190 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

appear from the records that any meeting from the Board of 
Aldermen was held on the 10th day of June, 1868, as stated in the 
indorsement,' (the Mayor's endorsement accepting the propo- 
sition.) 

"By this arrangement, $568,000 six per cent bonds were 
issued to take up $369,000 of open accounts. In other words 
to settle $369,000 of debt, the bonds and interest would cost 
us $1,590,400. 

''Second Statement— In June, 1867, $897,000 of paving 
bonds were authorized to be issued. Under this authority sixty- 
two bonds, ($62,000) were actually sold at the following prices: 



"Bonds 


Proceeds 


Proceeds on the Dol. 


Loss on Dol. 


$ 4,000 


$ 643.34 


16 < 


cents 


84 cents 


3,000 


670.00 


22 




78 " 


5,000 


941.67 


19 




81 " 


5,000 


753.57 


15 




85 " 


7,000 


1,682.10 


24 




76 " 


8,000 


1,746.95 


22 




78 " 


1,000 


450.00 


45 




55 " 


8,000 


2,710.00 


34 




66 " 


3,000 


900.00 


30 




70 " 


8,000 


1.432.75 


18 




82 " 


4,000 


812.67 


20 




.80 " 


2,000 


64.12 


3 1 


-5c 


96 4-3c 


4,000 








100 " 



$62,000 $12,807.17 Av. 20 3-5 cents 79 2-5c 

After setting forth these statements and other conditions, 
the petitioners continued: 

"And so, petitioners, through your honorable body and 
the highest judicature of the country, having obtained some 
surcease from their intolerable burdens, hope your honorable 
body will not again enslave them, but allow them to maintain 
their vantage ground, and make such a settlement of the debts 
of the dead city of Memphis as will be just and fair to the 
creditor, and not compel petitioners to desert their homes, or 
give them over to the merciless exaction of those who in time 
past have shown no mercy." 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 191 

The peitioners showed the former excessive expenses ot 
the old city government and the much reduced amounts for 
carrying on the same functions under the Taxing District. 
After stating the greedy demands of the bondholders to levy 
taxes, they stated: 

"It can easily be demonstrated that a tax sufficient to meet 
the demands of bondholders, together with the state and 
county taxes, would amount to confiscation — speedy and irre- 
trievable. * * * And in after years — well it is unnecessary to 
calculate them, for the first year would finish us." 

Setting forth the city's wrongs and hardships, they con- 
tined : 

"Had it not been for the charity of our fellow citizens 
throughout the whole country [during the epidemics] we would 
not have been able to bury our dead — and in the midst of it 
all the insatiate clamor of creditors, not for justice, not for 
compromise, not for a fair compensation, but for the pound of 
flesh which they have from the beginning claimed, was it not 
time for us to ask your honorable body, the State Legislature, 
to take back our franchises, and give us another and different 
municipal instrumentality by which we could preserve our- 
selves from absolute destruction?" 
Again : 

"It should not be forgotten that the policy pursued by 
these creditors, in connection with the great plagues that 
from time to time have afflicted this community, has reduced 
the population from fifty thousand to a little more than thirty 
thousand inhabitants, and its taxable values from $30,000,000 
to the nominal amount of $13,900,000, but to the actual amount 
of only about eleven millions that can be relied on to produce 
revenue ; and that the relief extended to these creditors should 
be made with reference to this diminished capacity to bear 
burdens, it being a state of things which they aided largely, 
by the course they pursued, in bringing about." 

This petition, which was quite lengthy, was signed by 
twenty-five citizens of the Taxing District. 
The Taxing District officers of 1880 w^ere : 
Board of Fire and Police Commissioners — D. T. Porter, 



192 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

president, salary $2,000; John Overton, Jr., salary $500; M. 
Burke, salary $500 ; C. L. PuUen, secretary, salary $800. 

Board of Public Works — C. M. Goyer, chairman ; R. Gallo- 
way, W. N. Brown, John Gunn, J. M. Goodbar. These members 
received no salary. 

The Legislative Council was composed of the two boards 
in joint session, Hon. D. T. Porter, Chairman. 

Dr. D. T. Porter was elected first President of the Board 
of Police and Fire Commissioners, and we learn from his 
report, tendered to the Governor of Tennessee, as required by 
Section 13 of the Act creating the Taxing District of Shelby 
County, Tennessee, Dee. 1, 1880, something of the work follow- 
ing the organization of the Taxing District. He says in part : 

"While a rate of taxation was fixed, the assessment of 
property and merchants' capital was not provided for, which 
necessitated an amendment, which was passed March 13th. 
Very soon thereafter the validity of the Charter or Act creat- 
ing the Taxing District was contested, which stopped the pay- 
ment of taxes. The Supreme Court decided in our favor on 
the fourth day of June, 1879, during which time a very small 
amount of revenue was received, and, in order to run the gov- 
ernment, Hon. John Overton, Jr., and myself borrowed about 
$7,000. After that time taxes were being promptly paid until 
the 10th of July, 1879, when the yellow fever made its appear- 
ance, which prevailed until about the 1st of November. During 
that time the payment of taxes ceased again, and business of 
every kind was almost entirely suspended." 

In April of 1879 there was a meeting of Taxing District 
citizens in the Greenlaw Opera House, called for the purpose 
of cooperation in providing ways and means for preventing 
yellow fever. Colonel Keating delivered an address on the 
benefits of sanitary work to prevent the introduction 
and spread of diseases, which created enthusiasm among his 
audience and brought immediate subscriptions of several 
thousand dollars for a fund for the purpose. The Auxiliary 
Sanitary Association was organized and officers elected, James 
S. Prestidge, president, and the association declared itself 
ready to work with the city to make Memphis a cledn ;iud 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 193 

B on-epidemic city. The member? of this new organization 
were: James S. Prestidge, president; Colton Greene, J. W. 
Dillard, N. Fontaine and H. Furstenheim, vice-presidents ; W. 
W. Thatcher, treasurer; A. D. Langstaff, secretary; John T. 
Willins, assistant secretary; Elias Lowenstein, Dave Eisman, 
J. S. Watkins, Sr., Luke E. Wright and J. M. Keating, executive 
committee; D. P. Hadden, L. Hanauer, H. M. Neely, J. Fowlkes 
and J. E. Beasley, finance committee; Dr. R. W. Mitchell, Dr. 
Overall and Dr. W. B. Winn, committee on sanitation. 

A valuable auxiliary these self-sacrificing and worthy 
citizens made, but summer was too near for their work, which 
had been begun at once, to advance far that year. Their 
industrious emptying of cesspools and general cleaning up 
was stopped, as Doctor Porter said tax-collecting was, by the 
reappearance of yellow-fever. In April the woman who had 
charge of the Linden Street school had a case of suspicious 
fever and she was reported to Doctor Thornton, of the Board 
of Health. She died and, to allay excitement, it was given 
out that her ease was malarial fever. 

The weather was getting warm, so emptying of vaults and 
otherwise stirring up filth was postponed for cooler days. The 
spring of that year was unusually warm and in May, another 
case of suspicious fever was reported in South Memphis. On 
the 26th this man died, having black vomit, and a few days 
after his decease another case of the disease occurred. In 
June several cases were diagnosed and in July the disease 
broke out in different parts of the town. The doctors no longer 
denied the nature of these maladies but instead, advised and 
urged depopulation of the city. By August there were only 
16,000 people left out of 40,000, the estimate of the previous 
June. Nearly 16,000 of the refugees took advantage of the 
camps around the city and so avoided the isolated suffering 
and neglect of the year before. The State Board of Health 
passed strict quarantine laws which were rigidly enforced, 
to prevent the spread of the disease to neighboring towns. 

The epidemic this year lasted from its early start until 
November 10, but was of a much milder form than it had been 
in 1873 and 1878. There were 2,010 cases of the disease, 587 of 



194 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

which were fatal. The per centum of white people attacked 
was 301/4j and of colored, 61/2- The percentage of deaths among 
the whites was 36,21 and of black 16.04. * 

The Howards and other organizations were again at the 
post of duty and self-sacrifice, and Doctor Thornton was as 
untiring in his labors as he had been the year before. Under 
his direction the Taxing District Board of Health, together 
with the State and National Boards of Health, made great 
strides in sanitary work, the beginning of a system that was 
to rid the city of the plague and enable her to recuperate and 
take her place as the important city she was entitled to be. 

Memphis seemed a ruined city, one with a stigma that 
Avould make her the shunned of all home-seekers, but her prob- 
lem was only a repetition of the experiences of cities before, 
some of them important centers of America. London and 
Paris had their plagues in former times, after which strenuous 
measures were taken to clean the cities, and other European 
and Asiatic municipalities had been called to account in the 
same way. The important city of Philadelphia once had her 
time of reckoning, when it was not known whether or not 
she would survive. In the last part of the Eighteenth Century, 
after this city had been ravaged by yellow fever, her citizens 
rallied their forces and her valuable son, Benjamin Franklin, 
urged cleanliness and a supply of pure water to be brought to 
the city in pipes, as the wells then in use he thought partook 
of the filth that soaked into the ground. He also advocated that 
the streets be paved and city ground be made as solid as possible 
in order to carry off rain and snow to prevent their soaking into 
the earth and carrying with them impurities to the wells. In 
1789 he wrote: "I" recommend that at the end of the first hun- 
dred years, if not done before, the corporation of the city 
employ a part of the hundred thousand pounds in bringing 
by pipes the water of Wissahiekon Creek into the town, so as 
to supply the inhabitants." In 1798, Doctor Browni of New 
York, said that he considered much of the sickness of that city, 
especially "the yellow fever which had recently made great 

*From the table of the State Board of Health, taken by Mr. John 
Johnson. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 195 

ravages there," to be caused from the use of impure water, 
caused by the sinking of filth into the soil.* 

So Memphis, younger than these cities, had learned her 
lesson at great cost, as they had done, and now was her time to 
act and to rectify former carelessness. 

Refugees who were in St. Louis in 1879, had meetings to 
discuss the future of Memphis and decided that complete sani- 
tation and pure water were the only solutions of the problem.! 
They determined to spare no expense within reason for an 
efficient sewer system and to petition the Legislature to aid 
in carrying out the work. Memphis must be saved soon or 
entirely lost. As she stood now, strangers would not go to her 
and present inhabitants were leaving by hundreds to seek more 
healthful homes. Business people and property-holders were 
desperate, hence the call of these meetings in another city 
before the return of the people to their homes. Memphis citi- 
zens in St. Louis formed committees to start to work immedi- 
ately upon returning to the desolated Taxing District, or just 
as soon as cool weather would permit general renovation. These 
committees were the Executive Committee, the members of 
which were W. H. Proudfit, Ben Eiseman, I. N. Snowden, Dr. 
D. T. Porter, M. Gavin, II. Furstenheim, John Overton, Elias 
Lowenstein, W. N. Brown, W. W. Thatcher, John W. Coch- 
rane and John K. Speed; the Committee on Calling an Extra 
Session of the Legislature, composed of George Gantt, Jerome 
Hill, Julius A. Taylor, J. M. Keating, A. J. Kellar, J. Harvey 
Mathes, J. S. Brigham, George R. Phelan and George B. Peters ; 
Committee on Loans and Finance— Napoleon Hill, Amos Wood- 
ruff, W. M. Farrington and Hugh L. Brinkley ; Committee on 
Engineering and Surveying— Colton Green, M. Burke, 0. H. P. 

♦Charles Hermany's Water Report to the Water Works & Sewer- 
age Commissioners of Memphis. — 1868. 

tNothing was known at that time of the mosquito as the mis- 
chievous factor in the dissemination of yellow fever. But the pro- 
posed remedy of "complete sanitation and pure water" nevertheless 
proved the most important boon to Memphis, as regarded its health- 
fulness, that had ever been proposed and carried intj effect. Aside 
from yellow fever, these indispensable requisities of comfortable 
living and good health have reduced the death rate from general 
causes more than one-half and made of a plague spot one of the most 
healthful cities in North America. 



196 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Piper; Committee on Legislation and Laws — Luke E. Wright, 
Judge John M. Lea, Thomas B. Turley, John T. Fargason and 
John Johnson. 

While these men were making home plans the National 
Board of Health had a meeting in Washington, — October 13, — 
to discuss Memphis, and a committee was appointed to make 
a sanitary survey of the Taxing District. This committee com- 
prised Dr. J, S. Billings of the United States Army, Dr. R. 
W. Mitchell, of Memphis, and Dr. H. A, Johnson, of Chicago.* 

The State Board joined these national and city workers 
and they investigated a thorough sewer plan and a house to 
house inspection, to be rigidly enforced, the Taxing District 
president and other officers joining heartily in the too-long- 
delayed campaign. 

Memphis inhabitants had not all returned to their homes 
when the house-to-house inspection began, under the personal 
direction of Doctor Mitchell. 

On November 22, the American Public Health Association 
met in Nashville. Col. George E. Waring, Jr., an experienced 
civil engineer of Newport, R. I., had been invited by Doctor 
Cabell, president of the association, to offer a plan of sewerage 
to be considered and discussed. His paper was listened to with 
interest and his plan not discussed, but adopted by the com- 
missioners from Memphis. These men invited Colonel Waring 
to make a special plan for sewering Memphis with the new, 
small-pipe, separate system he proposed. Later, the committee 
of the National Board of Health that visited Memphis engaged 
him as consulting engineer. Numerous meetings were held in 
Memphis, when all sorts of sewer systems were discussed. 
These discussions terminated with a general agreement to 
adopt the Waring system of sewers, and the inventor was 
employed to put in this system.t 

The National Board, impressed by the necessity of prompt 

♦Colonel George E. Waring said that "it was out of this epidemic 
1878 that the National Board of Health grew." 

tColonel Waring was well known in Memphis. He had com- 
mandeJ a brigade of Federal cavalry operating about Memphis. He 
was often engaged in fierce combats with General Forrest and, 
though generally worsted, was a brave and chivalrous soldier. 




,S i^^VT^-^ S'Srs 



^.clc^ ^^ 



^-t>^^^4l^-A 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 197 

action, made its examinations at once and prepared their report, 
a copy of which was furnished Governor Marks. They recom- 
mended the ventilation of all houses, disinfection of houses 
throughout, tearing down many unsanitary buildings, cleaning 
wells and cisterns, cleaning out and filling with fresh earth 
all excrement vaults and the introduction of Colonel "Waring 's 
sewer system. 

The work on the sewers was begun January 21, 1880, and 
went on fairly well, though much interferred with by the 
incessant rains of the early spring of that year. But "within 
four months after breaking ground," wrote Colonel "Waring, 
"we had laid the whole of the west main, the submain east 
of the bayou, and all of the laterals shown on the map of 1880, 
making a total length of over 18 miles with 152 flush-tanks 
and with four-inch house-connecting drains extending from 
the sewer to the sidewalk, or in alleys to the line of each 
private property." 

Colonel Waring remained in Memphis during the first 
part of the work on the sewers, but the efficiency of the city 
engineer, Mr. Niles Meriwether, and his better knowledge of 
handling some of the inexperienced assistants and laborers 
necessarily employed, obviated all necessity for the superin- 
tendence of the inventor and the greater part of the responsi- 
bility of the work devolved upon Mr. Meriwether and his 
assistants, though Major Humphreys was "engineer in charge" 
until 1883, when the entire responsibility devolved upon Mr. 
Meriwether. Mr. A. J. Murray was assistant engineer. 

This system of sewerage, known as the "Waring System, 
was ene not heretofore used to any extent, and hence uncer- 
tain, but it seemed reasonable and the fact that it was cheaper 
than the big-pipe sewerage recommended it to a city impov- 
erished as Memphis had been. But, aside from economy, argu- 
ments in favor of the new system won the ears of the com- 
mittee and the public, who, as before stated, acted upon the 
plan immediately. Colonel Waring at a later date wrote of 
the prompt action of Memphis at that time : ' ' That such a 
town, impoverished by a dishonest government, disheartened 
by the most serious epidemic extending over two years, and 



198 History of Memphis, Temiessee. 

without financial credit, should have done so promptly and so 
thoroughly the work that it did do must ever redound to the 
great credit of its people and of its rulers." 

"Waring 's plan provided for six-inch vitrified pipes, which 
discharged into pipes of eight inches diameter, these sub-mains 
increasing to ten and twelve inch pipes where the flow was 
greater. The mains were from twelve to fifteen inches and when 
the mouth was neared the increase grew to twenty inches 
of brick inclosure. The small pipes were easily ventilated and 
their glazed smoothness allowed sewerage to pass through 
easily. The workmen were instructed not to allow the slightest 
roughness in joining the pipes, as even a small defect of this 
sort would gather and hold silt and rubbish. 

These pipes were for sewerage only, excluding surface and 
underground drainage, but they were regulated and cleansed 
from flush-tanks and ventilators, so they could be kept con- 
stantly cleaned and half full of water. The pipes or drains 
for disposing of storm-water was an independent system, and 
discharged into the bayou. It v/as argued that the storm water 
should be used as flush for the sewers, but experienced engi- 
neers said that plan had never worked well as such supply 
of water was not constant; that the sudden rush smeared the 
pipe and as it receded left the smeared matter to ferment or 
make a slime that became offensively odorous and escaped 
through the ventilators as misnamed "sewer-gas," while sys- 
tematic flushing from tanks provided for the purpose, kept the 
pipes well washed and then half or nearly half full of water, 
that a constant flow might be had. Ventilation was obtained 
through the numerous house drains. 

Mr. F. S. Odell, who was one of the able assistants on the 
Memphis work, said that "the advantage of this system over 
the ordinary system of large sewers is two-fold. It is cleaner 
and cheaper — cleaner because the pipes are kept constantly 
flushed and thoroughly ventilated; cheaper because there is 
a vast difference between the cost of a large brick sewer, with 
its man-holes and receiving basins, and a small pipe-sewer, with 
its simple fresh-air inlets. The difference is very apparent 
when it is considered that the total cost of twenty miles of 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 199 

sewers in Memphis, for labor, materials, engineering, superin- 
tending and incidentals, including the two main sewers, was 
about $137,000." 

Charles Hermany, in his report to the Memphis Water 
Works and Sewerage Commissioners, had this to say: "As 
sanitary measures, large sewers are very objectionable, for the 
reason that the ordinary flow of sewerage spreading over the 
inverts of large sewers has not sufficient volume and scouring 
efficacy to remove promptly the heavier particles of undecom- 
posed animal and vegetable matter constantly finding their 
way into them. The constant accumulation of such matter dur- 
ing the dry season of each year, when the flow of sewage 
does not keep the main sewers clean, would convert them, as 
it were, into 'elongated' cess-pools, and thus originate or aid 
in prolonging epidemics to a fearful extent. To keep sewers 
of this magnitude clean by flushing them with water from the 
public water supply, would involve an expense for elevating 
water for this purpose alone." 

This small-pipe system brought another good than that for 
which the engineers were working. In the big sewers it is 
necessary that men go into them often, and by manual labor 
rid them of their filth. This is exceedingly unpleasant, unwhole- 
some and dangerous work, and an abolishment of such labor is 
a benefit to humanity. 

Charles H. Latrobe, C. E., of Baltimore, Md., who, after 
the Memphis sewers had been working successfully, came to 
examine them, said: "I examined the action of the flush- 
tanks, which I found discharged with the most perfect regu- 
larity, being under complete control as to the amount of water 
used. I also examined personally into the condition of the 
main and outlet sewers, both of the fifteen-inch pipe and the 
twenty-inch brick sewer. The sewers were running at the 
time of my inspection three fourths full with a swift current. 
Nothing solid could be detected, not even paper, in the flow. 
Nor was it in the least offensive. This condition existed, I was 
told, as a rule in all parts of the system. I also measured the 
flow, and was astonished at its regularity. My conclusions 
were that the Memphis system answered fully the purpose for 



200 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

which it was intended, and which is primarily the object of all 
sewerage systems, but which seemed to me to be attained more 
perfectly in this case than in any other I had ever known of — 
viz: to carry off domestic and industrial wastes with rapidity 
and without offense to their destination. So regular and rapid 
was the flow through the pipes of the Memphis system that 
no time was given for putrefaction to take place between the 
time at which the waste products entered the system and were 
delivered into Wolf River." 

This innovation in sewerage was watched with interest by 
engineers all over the civilized world, especially in England, 
where a separate system had never been used and where the 
engineers had grave doubts of its working efficacy. In France 
the new system was looked upon favorably and Mr. E. Lavoinne, 
chief engineer of the department of Rouen, said "that the 
sewerage of the city of Memphis had solved the sewerage 
problem for Paris."* 

Doctor Porter, in the Taxing District report of December 
1, 1880, already referred to, had this to say of the streets and 
sewers: "Very little paving or other work was done until 
January, ] 880 ; since which time over five miles of stone pave- 
ment have been completed, and twenty-four miles of sewers, 
and about the same number of miles of sub-soil drains have 
been completed, the sewers to convey sewage into the river, 
and the subsoil drains to drain and purify the soil. Both are 
acting splendidly. Our thanks are due Col. George E. War- 
ing, Jr., of Newport, R. I., for this admirable system of sewer- 
age and subsoil drains. I think other cities would do well to 
investigate before adopting any other system." 

Other cities did adopt the system and eight years after 
the adoption by Memphis, the inventor wrote: "The sewers 
of Memphis have now been in operation for eight years. Their 
original extent has been more than doubled. That they have 
been successful is shown not only by their increased use there, 
but by the quite remarkable extension of the use of the system 
throughout the country." During that time the Waring sys- 
tem had been put into thirty-seven other towns, these scattered 

•Waring, in "Sewerage and Land-Draining." 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 201 

all over the United States, and plans had been made for eighteen 
other places. 

Colonel Waring concludes his extensive book of 1889 on 
''Sewerage and Land Drainage," thus: "The city [Memphis] 
would not have adopted this plan but for its sore need and its 
great poverty. Work of the same sort had never been done 
before anywhere in the world. Other engineers predicted the 
failure of the system. Notwithstanding their predictions, it 
succeeded, and those who once opposed it have since adopted 
it. Memphis itself, now rich and prosperous, still adheres to 
the plan, and has more than doubled the length of pipe laid in 
1880* * * * * the total length of sewers of this system now in 
completely successful operation in the United States is between 
250 and 300 miles. * * * * No engineer who has had experience 
with its working would think of giving it up." 

Mr. Niles Meriwether, who superintended the work of 
laying the sewers from the beginning, found it necessary from 
time to time, as the work progressed and grew in magnitude, to 
enlarge the supply pipes. Of the system he entirely approved 
and of it said, six years after its introduction : ' ' Thus far no 
fault can be found with the manner in which this system has 
worked. The excessive quantity of mud in the water is our 
chief cause of trouble, the small, three-quarter inch supply 
pipes of the flush-tanks being clogged with mud, making it 
necessary to replace these in high places with large pipes. With 
clear-settled or filtered water all this trouble will cease and the 
whole system will work to a charm." 

So the manifold misfortunes and poverty of Memphis 
caused her to be the starting place of a system of cleanliness 
that was to become widespread and benefit much of the civilized 
world. All animal excrement and other waste matter not 
carried through the sewers was to be carted away and the 
condition of premises was to be rigidly inspected by the Board 
'of Health. The inspectors appointed for this work were 
Doctors G. D. Bradford, S. H. Collins, H. Ess, G. W. Overall 
and W. B. Winn, of Memphis, and Drs. P. B. McCutchen and 
F. W. Parham, of New Orleans, who were assisted by a corps of 
twenty-six able helpers. 



202 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

These inspectors found some deplorable conditions in cel- 
lars and yards. Among these finds were 1,184 public nuisances ; 
124 stagnant pools, 369 cisterns and wells within ten feet 
of vaults, 3,039 within from ten feet to fifty feet from them, 
and many of these vaults were under houses and in cellars, 
some holding collections of filth of many years accumulation. 

The Taxing District ofiicers tried to use her money to 
advantage. Improvements in all the municipal branches went 
forward and residents were requested and required to put 
private property in sanitary condition. The report of the 
city engineer, Mr. Meriwether, to the President of the Taxing 
District, Dec. 1, 1880, tells of some of the important work done 
and money expended from Feb. 1, 1879 to Dec. 1, 1880. To 
quote from that report: "The total expenditures have been 
$199,533.35 ***** $160,296.02 have been expended in the 
purchase of materials (stone, gravel, etc.), and the paving of 
streets — a total of 5 28-100 miles having been paved, equal to 
99,903 square yards. Of this amount about 38,000 square 
yards, or about 1 7-10 miles were block stone, and the remain- 
der Telford and Macadam form. The statement also shows that 
4 23-100 miles of Nicholson pavement have been taken up, 
the greater part of which has been replaced with stone pave- 
ments. Much of this work was done under great disadvantages 
of bad weather, and the trials and troubles occasioned by the 
fever of 1879. 

"Considering all the difficulties encountered, a great deal 
has been accomplished, and the citizens of the District have 
reason to be proud of the work of the past twenty-two months. " 

This report also showed that twenty bridges and culverts 
had been built and repaired in the twenty-two months ; that 
2,800 cubic yards of rip rap stone had been used and 15,800 
square yards of the wharf had been paved, thirty anchor-rings 
placed, a large amount of piping for cleaning and fire pur- 
poses, besides much repairing, — this outside of the sewering. 

Major Humphreys reported up to July 1, 1881, the putting 
in of 3,579 water-closets, 2,408 sinks, 133 urinals, 267 bath tubs, 
200 wash-basins, 17 privy-sinks and 14 cellar-drains, and he 
added the words : ' ' The system of sewers appears to give 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 203 

entire satisfaction both to the city government and citizens 
generally. ' ' 

All branches of civic improvements were receiving their 
due attention during this time of agitating and putting in 
sewers, and a few excerpts from Doctor Porter's report to 
Governor Marks will suffice to show how the Taxing District 
officials and others were performing their several duties. He 
says, in praise of his helpers : 

"The police department, under P. R. Athy, as chief until 
August 1st, when he was elected sheriff, and since that time 
under W. C, Davis, as chief, has been admirably managed, and 
the officers and men have performed their duties well and 
faithfully. * * * * The fire department, under M. McFadden, as 
chief, has been very efficient, and officers and men have done 
their duty nobly and efficiently. * * * * To these departments 
our people owe a debt of gratitude for their vigilance and 
promptness in protecting life and property, especially during 
the epidemic. 

"C. L. Pullem, secretary, has rendered me invaluable aid. 
****** 

"Judge C. W. Ileiskell, district attorney, has done his 
whole duty, promptly and efficiently. 

"Major N. Meriwether, district engineer, has performed 
the arduous duties of his office satisfactorily and well. 

"Dr. G. B. Thornton, President of the Board of Health, 
has been active and vigilant in performing his duties, and has 
had an immense amount of work done. Capt. D. F. Jackson, 
health officer, has rendered him valuable assistance." 

After commending other individuals and organizations, he 
continues: "The people have been the great friend of the 
government, not only obeying the laws, but by paying their 
taxes promptly and making liberal subscriptions for paving 
and sanitary work. Besides paying their taxes they have 
expended from $150,000 to $200,000 in cleaning out, disinfect- 
ing and j&lling up privy vaults, making connections with the 
sewers, and other valuable sanitary work during this year — 
this, too, after two successive epidemics of yellow fever, which 



204 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

prostrated business and reduced values of property, etc., very 
largely." 

Of the financial condition of the new government he said : 

"All employees of the government have been promptly 
paid, and the Taxing District can pay all its liabilities on 
demand, except what it owes to Overton, Burke and Porter, 
about $40,000, temporarily loaned to finish paving and con- 
tinue the sewer work while the weather was suitable, which 
will be paid in a few weeks. 

"All contracts are made on a cash basis." 

Doctor Porter thanked the Governor for his interest in 
Memphis, thus : 

"Our people owe your Excellency a debt of gratitude that 
cannot be expressed by words only, for assistance you rendered 
at the breaking out of the yellow fever in 1879, which enabled 
me to protect life and property ; for the powerful appeal made 
to the people of Tennessee for money and supplies to aid 
in feeding and caring for our people in camps; for your very 
generous oifer to aid me in taking care of the same without 
limit as to the amount, if reasonable, for calling the Legislature 
together in extra session to pass our sewer bill ; and for many 
other acts of kindness." 

Doctor Porter's work had been through a trying period 
and he had never held public office before, but by giving all 
of his time to the problem he was helping to solve, he started 
the new government on the road to success. 

Doctor Porter was succeeded in 1882 by Hon. D. P. Had- 
den. The officers and members of the Legislative Council for 
the Taxing District this year were elected by popular vote, as 
had been provided in the Taxing District Act. D. P. Hadden, 
R. C. Graves and M. Burke were elected the Board of Fire and 
Police Commissioners and James Lee, Jr., Lymus Wallace, 
Charles Kney, Henry James and M. Gavin, the Board of 
Public Works. 

At the first meeting held by the Police and Fire Commis- 
sioners, D. P. Hadden was elected President. Mr. Hadden was 
a unique character but a strong man and well fitted to take up 
the arduous work of the Taxing District. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 205 

The great problem was still the Memphis debt, which had 
not yet been satisfactorily arranged. In 1882 the Legislature 
empowered a liquidating board to settle the liabilities at 33 1-3 
cents on the dollar. The board comprised J. R. Godwin, J. J. 
Duffy and H. F. Dix. This act was generally so unsatisfactory to 
the creditors that only a small part of the debt was thus 
funded. The following year another act was passed whereby 
a new liquidating board was authorized to compromise the debt 
at 50 cents on the dollar. The members appointed on this board 
were D. P. Hadden, S. P. Walker and C. W. Heiskell. By 
December, 1884, $4,589,881.38 of the old debt was refunded and 
a debt of .$2,396,299.67 was created against the Taxing District. 

Some of the creditors were still stubborn and refused the 
fifty per cent compromise, so in 1885 another board was allowed 
by the Legislature to still further negotiate for final settlement. 
This board was made up of Napoleon Hill, I. N. Snowden, 
Thomas B. Turley, J. R. Godwin and the three police and fire 
commissioners, who were James Lee, Jr., H. A. Montgomery 
and D. P. Hadden. These men were to compromise on the best 
terms they could, and after much controversy and arguments 
of length they settled the remaining debt of $1,049,940.80 by 
the issuance of $773,830 in bonds against the Taxing District. 
The bonds of the three refunding boards made $3,102,930.14, 
the whole debt of the Taxing District.* 

By November, 1886, there was only $150,000 of the old 
city debt left, most of that in bonds not then due.t By 1888 
there was outstanding $3,241,710.85 of new bonds to mature in 
1907, 1913 and 1915, the annual interest on the amount being 
$148,648, which. Colonel Keating said in 1888, was ''met 
promptly every six months at maturity." 

Mr. Hadden 's first report, to Governor Alvin Hawkins, 
successor to Governor Marks, who had been such a friend to 
Memphis, showed the Taxing District to be succeeding as a 
government. The president said, ''The present form of gov- 
ernment becomes more and more satisfactory with each day 
of its existence. It is less cumbrous, and so far superior to 

♦Gathered from Vedder and Taxing District Reports. 
tVedder. 



206 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the old municipal form of government that I will venture to 
say no thinking citizen desires its dissolution. The old system 
was complicated, and made necessary the establishment of 
many offices which are not now required. * * * * Again it has 
been sufficiently proven that the present method of electing 
officers by the voice of the whole people is far preferable to the 
the old system of election by wards." Of the Board of Health 
he said: "The Board of Health, composed of Dr. G. B. Thorn- 
ton, president; Dr. J. H. Purnell, secretary; D. F. Jackson, 
health officer, and W. C. Davis, chief of police, is active, vigil- 
ant and effective in all things pertaining to local sanitation. * * 
* * Its efficacy in the past two years in all respects has been 
thoroughly tested as a public health organization, and it has 
given entire satisfaction to the government and our citizens 
generally. ' ' 

He commended other public workers and said of the 
District Attorney, "Judge C. W. Heiskell, Taxing District 
Attorney, has fulfilled the duties of his office in a highly satis- 
factory manner to the government and its citizens. In all mat- 
ters affecting the Taxing District government, from its incipi- 
ency to the present hour, he has been its warm friend, defender 
and legal adviser and he is more familiar with all the legal 
points affecting its interests than any member of the govern- 
ment." 

In his report of 1884 President Hadden complained of the 
poor method of collecting taxes, by which delinquency became 
so enormous. He stated that in the then six years of the exist- 
ence of the Taxing District there was a ' ' delinquent tax list of 
$134,526.08 for general purposes and $28,602.32 for the purpose 
of paying interest on the compromise debt of the Taxing Dis- 
trict." Two years later he showed the accumulated delin- 
quency to be $125,288.32, and to these figures he added the 
words: "Experience teaches us that under the present laws 
and present mode of collecting taxes our city government will 
always have to carry about $150,000 of delinquent back taxes. 
About as much as is collected from the preceding years will 
offset the delinquency for the current years." 

Further on in this 1886 report he cautioned: "We would 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 207 

not overlook the fact that being a prosperous and rapidly grow- 
ing city we have much to do to meet the demands of this growth 
and prosperity. Our greatest need at present is good, pure, 
wholesome water." 

But although there were still glaring needs, the growth of 
the city was an assured fact and the president said, in recog- 
nition of this: "The past two years have been the most pros- 
perous and most important in the history of Memphis. This 
seems to have been brought about by the general outside feel- 
ing that Memphis possesses the location of a great railroad 
center. Congress recognizing this fact, has recently passed a 
bill providing for the construction of a railroad bridge over 
the Mississippi River at this point. This bridge will be com- 
pleted within the next three years, or sooner, if possible, as 
the demands of trade are now requiring it, and the various 
railroad interests both east and west of the Mississippi will be 
focalized at Memphis, thereby forever fixing her commercial 
supremacy in the great Mississippi Valley." 

Obtaining pure water was quite as potent a municipal 
necessity as disposing of the dirt, so this subject went hand in 
hand with the sewers. 

In 1868 Mr. Charles Hermany, then civil engineer of 
Memphis, after investigating the supply and quality of water 
to be obtained for the city, recommended that Wolf River water 
be used. A water company was formed and in 1870 they 
obtained a charter from the Legislature, under the name of 
the Memphis Water Company. A pumping station was erected 
on the south bank of Wolf River and the company laid seven- 
teen miles of pipe to supply the city with river water.* Previ- 
ous to this time only cisterns and wells had supplied the inhab- 
itants with water and some of these were far from sanitary. 

This company did not succeed financially and their plant 
was sold in 1879 to a newly organized company for $200,000. 
This new organization was also named The Memphis Water 
Company. 

March 6, 1880, the water works were again sold, this time 
for only $155,000. Of this new company, which was composed 

•Lundee's Report on the Water Works System of Memphis. 



208 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

of business men. Jiuiixo T. J. Latham was elected president.* 

After the opideiuii's had brought forth the sewer system 
more water was needed for the tlush-tanks, house-flushes and 
otlier domestic purposes, so the JNlemphis Water Company 
extended its pipes and started negotiations with the Taxing 
District for the public supply of water. This contract was 
not completed until iMay, 1S82. After this water-piping 
increased rapidly, but the water was sometimes so muddy as 
to be very unsatisfactory. Three years after the consumnuition 
of this contract, which was to remain in force for twenty years, 
there were citizens' meetings for the purpose of providing ways 
and nutans of getting better water. The Legislative Council of 
the Taxing District appointed a committee of ten to investigate 
water supplies in the vicinity. General Colton Greene was 
engaged to report to this committee, which lie did in February, 
1886. After hearing from General Greene the committee pur- 
sued its further investigation and reported in December of the 
same year to the Legislative Council. Three sources of water 
supply were considered, namely, that of the IMississippi Kiver, 
of Horn Lake and of Wolf River, higher up stream than where 
the supply was then obtained. In any case it would be tu^ces- 
sary to provide for filtration. 

Wells had been suggested to the committee, but wells at 
that time were not thought feasible, especially as The IMemphis 
Water Company had experimented with wells and reported 
them failures. They rejected driven wells as "impracticable 
for local reasons," and artesian wells because of their "uncer- 
tainty and unreliability." 

After nuich discussion of all the systems presented, this 
committee recommended "Wolf Kiver, at a point above and 
near to the L. & N. K. R. crossing, as the proper source of 
supply," and they advised tlie adoption of tlie plan of the 
water works described by Gen. Colton Greene. 

While this committee was busy with its discussions and 
recommendations against the w^ells, Mr. R. C. Graves, super- 
intendent of the Bohleu-Iluse lee Company, had a well sunk 

♦Keating. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 209 

on Court Street for "obtaiuing water i'or condensing purposes, 
to a depth of :irA f(!et."* 

This well proved a suecc^ss and came to be much discussed, 
castinjj; other recommended systems for the city supply of watt^r 
into shadow. A company was organized to supply the Taxing 
District from wells, and upon successful experiments they 
were able to contract with the authorities in July, 1H87. This 
new company took the name of "The Artesian Water Com- 
pany," and agreed to supply water to the city and to individ- 
uals. This int(!rferred with tlu; Wolf Kiver Company, so they 
too sank wells. Consolidation of interests was considered, but 
that plan was not fully agreed upon until 1889. In April of 
that year the two (companies combined and soon after this con- 
solidation the Wolf liiver plant l)ecame a thing of the past. 

In 1890 a first-class pumping station was started, and the 
Memphis water supply became one of the l)est supplies in th(; 
world. Mr. Lundee gives this description of how the wells 
give forth their supply: 

"To the bottom of each well tube, in the ease of the water 
works wells, is attached a strainer, consisting of a long section 
of brass tubing having fine slots cut in it, which permit the 
water to pass but hold back the sand. These slots are liable 
to become filled up, especially if the well should be in proximity 
to a clay pocket in the sand. When this occurs the water is 
held back and consequently the yield of the well is diminished. 
Various methods are adopted for cleaning the strainers. * * ♦ * 
The water is pumped directly into the distributing mains. * * * * 
The major quantity leaving the pumping station is primarily 
taken by a IJG-inch pipe which runs west along Auction Street 
and south along Front and Shelby Streets, connecting with a 
standpipe about two miles distant from the station, situated 
on a lot at Tennessee and Talbot Streets. * * * * From this 
pipe subdistribution is made. The standpipe is of steel con- 
struction, twenty feet in diameter and 160 feet high. The 
function of the standpipe is simply that of a pressure regulator 
and in a limited degree acts as a reservoir." 

Experts from different sections examined the Memphis 

♦Lundee's Report. 



210 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

artesian water and all pronounced it excellent, some the best 
city supply in the world. Of the yield, Mr. Lundee says : "The 
supply is inexhaustible and it is limited only as the supply 
from any spring or river has its natural limitations by the rate 
at which it is called on to yield water. Thus the water, while 
there is no reason for not using it liberally, ought not to be 
unnecessarily wasted." 

In the contract between the Taxing District and the 
Artesian Water Company, the latter contracted to furnish, 
twelve months from the time of the contract, "good, clear, 
pure and wholesome water of the character examined and 
approved" by the board of inspectors in a previous report, 
from "deep wells of the depth of about 400 feet below the 
level of Court Square in said Taxing District or deeper, if nec- 
essary." Besides private supply they contracted to furnish 
water for fire-hydrants, flush-tanks, to be flushed once or 
twice every twenty-four hours, dumping stations, public munici- 
pal offices, police stations, municipal hospitals, engine-houses, 
public fountains — not over two, — sanitary stables, levee wash- 
ing, flushing gutters, public drinking-fountains — not over 
twelve, etc. 

So the eighties seemed to be untangling all the knotty prob- 
lems of the two previous decades that had hampered Memphis 
and made her very existence doubtful. 

The Board of Health reports from year to year show 
improved conditions and much work along sanitary lines. In 
1885 Dr. Thornton said in his annual report: "The year was 
an exceptionally healthy one. * * * * The total freedom from 
epidemic disease, with a lower death rate calculated upon the 
same estimated population, must be due, in a large measure, 
to the improved sanitary condition of the city, the enforcement 
of the health ordinances and operations of the health depart- 
ment. 

"With a steadily increasing population, which is apparent 
and conceded, and which is attested by improvements in every 
part of the city, the number of deaths for the year is 193 less 
than for 1884, and only 81 in excess of 1883. This, I think. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 211 

demonstrates very clearly an improved condition of the public 
health of the city." 

In each year's report Doctor Thornton compliments sani- 
tary and sewerage work in the Taxing District but deplores 
always the unsanitary condition of Bayou Gayoso and the 
dilapidated and unsanitary condition of the City Hospital. 

In 1888 yellow fever was reported in Jacksonville, Fla., 
Decatur, Ala., Jackson, Miss., and other Southern points, so 
quarantine became strict in Memphis and a refuge hospital, 
to be placed in a safe locality, was advocated. Mr, Niles 
Meriwether had a plan for such a hospital "of eight rooms, 
with halls, verandas, etc., * * * * estimated to cost $3,000." 
There were a few suspicious cases of fever in Memphis that 
season, but the decade ended free from pestilence with a small 
death rate and the Bluff City had come in a few years time to 
be pronounced one of the most healthful cities in the country, 
instead of one of danger. 

In his fourth biennial report, Jan. 1, 1889, President Had- 
den gave the happy statement: "It is gratifying to report 
that the debt of the old city of Memphis is practically settled — 
probably ten thousand dollars yet outstanding. The compro- 
mise bonds are above par." 

He said he "would also state that during the last two 
years a new gas company has been introduced into our city, 
and also a new water company, and our citizens are to be 
congratulated upon having at present an abundant supply of 
pure artesian water, overflowing from thirty-two wells. This 
is the greatest boon our city has ever possessed. * * * * We 
are also to be congratulated that work has been commenced 
upon a railroad traffic bridge across the Mississippi at this 
point, which will add greatly to our material prosperity. Our 
city has enjoyed perfect health during the past two years, and 
we know of no city that has such a bright future and possesses 
so many elements of prosperity and future greatness." 



^ CHAPTER X 



Memphis Rising From Her Ashes. Census of 1890. Details of 
the Sewer System. The Bethell Administration. Increase 
of Property Values. The Cotton Trade. Big Fires in 
Memphis. The Mississippi River Bridge. Ceremonies of 
the Opening. Electric Car Service Inaugurated. Protest 
Against Taxing District Form of Government. Taxing 
District Proves a Success. Form of Taxation Unjust to 
Memphis. Gamblers Again. Law and Order League. Sam 
Jones in Memphis. Other Lecturers and Moral Workers. 
The Legislature Restores Titles of City, Mayor and Vice- 
Mayor. Clapp Elected Mayor. Artesian Water Company, 
Telephones and Electric Lighting. Back Tax Collector 
Appointed. Memphis to Levy Her Own Taxes. New City 
Hospital. Interstate Drill and Encampment. Flood of 
Mississippi River. Yellow Fever Scare. Bank Clearings. 



AS MEMPHIS had from her beginning, after every back- 
set, taken new life so, even after she had seemed to 
be left in ashes she revived, and out of the ruins rose, 
like the ever mythical-truthful phoenix. Hope, her shining 
though sometimes cloud-hidden star, rose higher and clearer 
in the sky as the eighties progressed, and Memphis again 
asserted herself. 

This city was a need of the country and it was inevitable 
that she should take her place in the work of the Nation. There 
was no other important city within two hundred or more 
miles of her bluffs. Her situation made her the entrepot of 
several states and western produce could come most conven- 
iently to this market. She was a valuable point between St. 
Louis and New Orleans and by right, if freed from misfortunes 
that had held her back, should become as great and important 
as either of these cities. 

Mississippi, with its wealth of cotton, lay just south of 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 213 

her borders, her own great state, that was yearly developing 
in untold riches, lay north and east, while Arkansas, a state 
beginning to be recognized as one of the richest of the country, 
was to be joined to the Bluff City by a great steel bridge. These 
advantages could not but receive recognition from the business 
world and, as assurance spread that pestilence and unreason- 
able debt were no longer hindrances to her citizens, her resi- 
dents were encouraged and new people began to come. 

In 1880 the population had been reduced from 40,226 in 
1870, and 40,230 in 1875,* to 33,592. By 1885, the estimated 
population was 60,000, and each year of confidence added to 
the number until by 1890 there were 64,495. In 1880 Memphis 
had been practically a city in the mud, but the efficient work 
year by year of the city engineer and his assistants had brought 
many good streets, bridges, culverts, miles of sewers, drains 
and other conveniences, as shoAvn in the lucid annual reports 
of Mr. Meriwether. 

President Hadden, in his report of December 1, 1884, to 
Governor Bate, said of Mr. Meriwether's work : "I am satisfied 
that no city ever received more or better work for the same 
amount of money than has been accomplished by this able 
engineer. He in connection with Mr. Anthony Ross, his assist- 
ant, have vastly extended and improved our sewer system, 
which has done so much to improve the health of our city 
since its introduction four years ago." 

In this same report Mr. Hadden praised the Board of 
Health work and said: "The garbage system of this city we 
think excels in efficiency any city that we know of, and our 
own people as well as those who visit us, express the belief 
that we are the cleanest city in the country. This entire 
department receives the personal attention of that able sani- 
tarian Dr. G. B. Thornton, who is the president of our local 
Board of Health, which is composed of Dr. G. B. Thornton, 
Dr. George S. Graves, secretary, D. F. Jackson, Health Officer, 
and W. C. Davis, Chief of Police." 

As Memphis grew and the sewer-pipes became vehicles of 

♦This standstill of population from 1870 to 1875 was due to the 
yellow fever epidemic of 1873. 



214 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

more and more sewage the six-inch pipes were found to be 
inadequate. Obstructions sometimes occurred of sticks, bones 
and other objects getting caught cross-wise in the small pipes. 
It was necessary to locate and remove all these, which added 
considerably to the cost of the maintenance, the cost of these 
removals averaging $13.50 each. 

In a report "compiled and prepared under the supervision 
of Niles Meriwether," by his assistant, James H. Elliott, in 1891, 
it was set forward that ' ' the unit or six-inch pipe is too small, as 
nearly all of the stoppages occur in them; very few in large 
pipes where properly laid. * * * * As early as 1882 the main 
sewers were at times taxed to their full capacity. In 1885-86 the 
main sewers had become so overcharged as to make it neces- 
sary to tap them at several points north of Monroe Street." 

Manholes, which had been left out when the Waring 
system was laid, because of the saving of expense, were now 
necessary and many were put in along the old line of work and 
in the new. These soon proved their efficacy by reducing the 
cost of removals of stoppages, as well as enabling better obser- 
vation of the pipes and so fewer obstructions had to be dealt 
with. 

Mr. Elliott had to say of the plumbing of that period: 
"Attention is called to the great improvement in our plumbing 
work. To the untiring energy of the inspector, Mr. "William 
Lunn, and his hearty interest in his w^ork is this great improve- 
ment greatly due; and it may also be added that we have in 
this work, as a rule, the hearty cooperation of the plumbers, 
who have come to realize that they have, if possible, as much 
or more interest in first-class plumbing and good sanitary 
work. ' ' 

The cost of the sewering during that decade amounted 
to $399,314.18, an average per mile of about $8,100. 

Mr. Meriwether said : "It would seem that we have now 
reached a period in the growth of the city when it has become 
necessary to build in the near future one or two large intercept- 
ing sewers, discharging by independent outlets directly into 
the river, for which surveys and plans should be made as soon 
as the time and means will permit. * * * * These sewers should 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 215 

be made sufficiently large to accommodate territory beyond 
our present limits that may be brought in within a few years," 

When the Waring system of pipes was put in only the 
southern part of the city profited from the work. The northern 
part, known as Chelsea, remained unsewered, except for private 
pipes, so Mr. Meriwether now advocated sewering that portion 
of the city with the Waring system, but with the mistakes of 
the first work rectified. These mistakes had not been many 
and the system had worked admirably on the whole. Colonel 
Waring himself, who came to Memphis in the early nineties 
to examine the system after thirteen years ' trial, said : 

"If time has shown that something less than absolute 
perfection was secured, here and there, I think it may still be 
said, that considering all the circumstances, we did reasonably 
well. The work then done had its desired effect of aiding 
to improve the sanitary condition of Memphis, and of show- 
ing to the world, that this condemned city had taken on a new 
life, that it was earnest in its determination to overcome the 
disastrous effects of its epidemics, and that it offered a hopeful 
field for enterprise. During the thirteen years that have since 
passed, it has maintained its promise, and from that moment 
of its regeneration, it has gone bravely on and has, by its pros- 
perity, astonished the world, which in 1879, would have been 
glad to see it swept off the face of the earth, as a dangerous 
public nuisance." 

In 1888 the Council ordered a survey of a system of sewer- 
age in Chelsea, which was made and a plan submitted by Mr. 
R. F, Hartford of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Mr. Hartford 
consulted Mr. Meriwether and, considering the defects of the 
old system, they worked out an improved plan. 

The Chelsea work was begun but progressed slowly the 
first year, retardation being enforced by the delay in getting 
pipe. Over 3,000 feet of pipe were laid in 1889 and a year 
later Mr. Meriwether said, ''For the coming year, 1891, we start 
out with a well-organized force at work on the Chelsea system. 
The work should be pushed to completion the coming year, if 
possible. ' ' 

The Chelsea work and that all over the city went rapidly 



216 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

forward, each portion of the city suggesting by its position or 
peculiarities its special needs. 

In 1890 Dr. J. E. Black was president of the Board of 
Health, and he continued the work begun by Doctor Thornton 
as well as he could with the small force allowed for his work. 
The house-to-house inspection was persevered in, much to the 
discomfort of careless house-keepers and other thoughtless 
persons. 

The population had more than doubled in ten years and 
larger forces became urgent in all the city departments. 

The chief officers of the Taxing District at that time, Janu- 
ary, 1890, were : Fire and Police Commissioners, — "W. D. 
Bethel, president; J. T. Pettit, vice-president; Martin Kelly. 
Supervisors of Public Works, — T. J. Graham, Samuel Hirsch, 
E. J. Carrington, George Haszinger, George E. Berbers. 

These two boards composed the Legislative Council, with 
Honorable W. D. Bethell, president. 

Other city officers were, — Henry J. Lynn, secretary ; Wil- 
liam M. Sneed, attorney; Niles Meriwether, chief engineer; A, 
T. Bell, assistant engineer ; W. C. Davis, chief of police ; James 
Burke, chief of fire department; W. B. Rogers, president of 
the board of health; William Krauss, secretary of board of 
health ; Dr. J. E. Black, surgeon in charge of the City Hospital. 

Doctor Rogers' first report shows work done in many 
branches, especially praising the inspection work of Mr. Wil- 
liam Lunn, inspector of plumbing. Doctor Rogers, as Doctor 
Thornton had been doing for several years, condemned in 
earnest language the city hospital, recommending that it be 
burnt to the ground and a new and modern one erected. 

Doctor Rogers' sanitary work extended itself to the 
humane effort of lifting poverty above some existing horrible 
conditions to cleaner habitations that would improve the 
inmates morally by making them more thoughtful of their 
surroundings and more active in keeping themselves decent. 
All work done for the betterment of humanity in one direction 
bears fruit in other directions as well. 

One of the first things this officer did was to ascertain 
how far the ordinance allowed the Health Board to go and 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 217 

then, using his authority to the fullest extent, he worked 
faithfully for bettering conditions wherever he could. Among 
other renovations he condemned "numerous decaying rookeries 
in which were cuddled hundreds of human beings; reveling 
in filth and breathing most unhealthful atmospheres." 

Doctor Krauss examined the water from cisterns and wells, 
many being condemned and ordered filled with fresh earth in 
consequence of these examinations. He recommended the 
artesian water in use as "absolutely pure." 

Dr. W. B. Rogers was followed in office by Dr. Shep. A. 
Rogers, who continued the city health work faithfully. One 
of this president's most earnest appeals was for a milk-inspect- 
or properly equipped with Babcock apparatus, and that his 
duties be not only to inspect the milk, but to visit and inspect 
the dairies. He also asked that abattoirs be established at 
some point along the river below the city, and that the unsan- 
itary slaughter houses then existing be abandoned. 

In 1893 Doctor Thornton again took charge of the Health 
Department, under better auspices than formerly. This year 
the sanitary force was strengthened, consisting of G. B. Thorn- 
ton, M. D., president; J. J. McGowan, M. D., secretary; D. F. 
Jackson, health officer; W. C. Davis, chief of police; W. L. 
Clapp, mayor, ex-officio member; Miss Verner Jones, clerk. 
The sanitary police officers were 0. B. Farris, John McPart- 
land, W. A. Casey, Thomas McCormick and E. F. Cunuy. 

The total number of deaths reported for the year 1893 was 
1,235— the smallest number reported since 18.82, when the 
population was very much smaller. 

Dr. Thornton resumed his condemnation of the condition 
of many parts of Bayou Gayoso and of the wretched old 
city hospital building. 

The decade just closed, that had made such strides in 
business and better conditions generally, and brought Memphis 
to the favorable recognition of the world once more, still had 
its official trials, as what city has not? One of these at that 
time was serious shortage in the Taxing District finances. The 
grand jury appointed for investigating this affair found a 
deficit of $10,377.80 in the station house fund between 1886 



218 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

and 1889. After this unfortunate discovery the jury was 
instructed to investigate further back and found that dishon- 
esty or carelessness had robbed the city of considerable of her 
revenue. 

On January 9, 1890, Honorable W. D. Bethell had been 
elected to succeed President Iladden, and on the 15th of the 
same month was inducted into office. 

Of President Iladden 's retirement the Appeal had this to 
say: 

"After 8 years of service the Hon. D. P. Iladden retires 
from the presidency of the Taxing District. During this period 
he has shown liimself a tireless officer. His individuality is 
of so pronounced a type that he has made himself famous. The 
Administration of the city government for the last eight years, 
has been distinctly his administration. His will has controlled 
the council. * * * * He has enjoyed demonstrations of the 
popular regard such as has rarely been experienced by public 
officials. He can point with satisfaction to many good results 
of his administration." 

In his parting speech, the last time he officiated as Police 
Judge, Mr. Hadden said : 

"I feel sad at leaving two such departments, but the will 
of the people seems to be that I should do so ; and I certainly 
resign the position which I hold with much more pleasure than 
I experienced when I took it up. * * * * I go forth without 
any ill feeling towards any one. * * * * I well know how 
tempestuous is the sea of politics, and how many have been 
wrecked thereon, but I claim that I was not sailing the bark 
of government upon this sea, and have ever looked upon it as 
a purely business government." 

Several northern and other papers writing of Memphis at 
this period likened her to great cities of the country and spoke 
of her as a "future Chicago of the southwest," the "future 
metropolis of the Mississippi Valley," a "great city of the 
future," and one author and poet* called her "The Collossus 
of the Valley." 

President Bethell, in his first report to Governor Buchan- 

*James R. Randall. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 219 

an, called attention to the growth of Memphis and the grow- 
ing needs as a consequence, thus : 

"The reports of these two years are very suggestive, and 
in a growing city, full of enterprising and public-spirited 
people, will doubtless show the necessity for increased pro- 
vision for enlarged public works during the incoming two 
years, and I trust it will please your Excellency to invite the 
attention of the Legislature of the State to these growing 
demands upon our city's public service, and allowing for its 
rapid growth, year by year, to make provision accordingly, by 
wise and liberal legislation." 

The total outstanding bonded indebtedness in 1890 was 
$3,248,977.11. By 1891 several thousand of these outstanding 
bonds had been called, leaving the amount outstanding, 
$3,230,042.93. 

Much of the street work done in the city was performed 
by the criminals or chain-gang, and this supplied the double 
service of keeping these unfortunates busy and forcing them to 
serve the city to which they were an expense. Of these work- 
men, Mr. Meriwether said in his report of January 1, 1891 : 

"In working the chain-gang every effort has been made 
to obtain the greatest amount of service, and in such directions 
as M^ould do the most good ; and a great deal has been accom- 
plished with that force during the year. The carpenter and 
bridge and street forces have done a large and unusual amount 
of work. There is no ward in the city in which more or less 
work has not been done by all of the above forces: grading 
and cleaning streets and alleys and repairing same, building 
bridges, culverts and drains, putting down crossings, setting 
curbing and other miscellaneous work. We have endeavored 
to do the greatest amount of work with these forces, and as 
impartially as possible." 

He also wrote, realizing the rapid growth of the city and 
consequently the need of increase in materials and working 
forces : 

"The question as to the best plan of grading and paving 
all the streets and alleys of the city in the shortest possible 
time, is now one of absorbing interest. The steady growth 



220 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

of the city and the great volume of business that has followed 
in the past two or three years, would seem to demand a change 
in our methods in this respect. There is no question that we 
need more paved streets and a better class of work, at least 
upon all of the central traffic streets of the city. The subject 
is one requiring the greatest care and deliberation. * * * * 
Our progress made in the past ten years has been commend- 
able, but something more is now required and the question is, 
upon what plan is it best to proceed?" 

He commends the work of his assistants, thanks them 
and concludes the report with a summary of the work done 
by his different departments from February, 1879 to Decem- 
ber 31, 1890, the total of all these amounting to $399,314.18. 

Chief of Police Davis in his report to President Bethell 
also urged increase of facilities to accord with the city's 
rapid growth. He said: 

"I urgently call your attention to the necessity of furnish- 
ing the department with more men, as you see from the roster 
we have only thirty-eight patrolmen, nineteen on each relief. 
We need at least twenty more men, which would be twenty- 
nine for each relief, which is less than three men to each ward. 
This is quite few enough, considering the extent of territory 
to patrol and the time taken up attending to the wants of 
the public at the depots of the ten railroads coming into our 
city, where some forty passenger trains arrive and depart 
daily. If the enactment giving us additional territory shall 
become a law, we shall need at least twelve mounted police- 
men — six on each relief — to patrol the new district. * * * * 
The patrol wagon so long needed and furnished the department 
a few months ago is a great benefit, bringing the prisoner 
quickly to the Station House, leaving the officer on his beat, 
and sparing him many hard struggles in bringing drunk and 
disorderly persons to the Station House ; but the full benefit 
of the wagon cannot be realized until we have established a 
police signal system. At present the police have to depend 
on private telephones to call for the wagon, and when the 
call is most urgent the officer may have to await the conven- 
ience of others before he can be accommodated." 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 221 

Chief Davis, often heartsick at the downfall of youth in 
the city, urged upon the Council the necessity of a reformatory 
for boys. To quote from this plea: 

"In years past I have urged the establishment of a house 
of correction for boys; the necessity still becomes greater for 
such an institution. The Mission Home and House of the Good 
Shepherd take care of many of the wayward girls we have 
to look after, but the viciously inclined boy roams about the 
streets, plunging into every kind of vice. For him we have 
no place except the rock-pile, where he is associated with still 
more hardened criminals than himself; where instead of being 
reformed, is prepared as he grows older to take position among 
the mature criminals in the penitentiary. Something should 
be done for the restoration and protection of these poor boys." 

One arrest recorded about this period was of a negro boy 
six years of age who had battered a somewhat larger boy's face 
with a brick. The little fellow was fined ten dollars. He had 
no father and his mother was a poor charwoman, so he had to 
work out his fine on the rock-pile, with older criminals who, 
amused at his infancy, enjoyed joking with and about him, 
not at all to his benefit. A judge who would thrust into such 
company a baby, that would in all probability grow to maturity, 
perhaps a menace to the city that had allowed him to develop in 
crime, was not appreciative of his power for good or evil. Chief 
Davis could see the hurtful consequences of such procedures 
and petitioned that they might be averted. 

For the year 1890 the Chief said that on the whole "we 
had had but little serious crime during the year." 

In his report for the following two years we find him 
still pleading for more modern and efficient appliances and 
methods, according with the growth of the city, which he 
said already compared favorably with larger cities. In this 
report he thanked the Council for what they had allowed for 
the furtherance of improvement. 

We have seen how, many years ago, the Memphis wharf- 
master had numerous trials in collecting the required fees 
from flatboat-men for the city, and how he finally come out 
victorious. All the years since then wharfage had continued 



222 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

to be an item in Memphis revenue, and at the close of 1890 
Wharfmaster Simon W. Green showed his collections during 
the year to have been $10,141.95. 

Memphis real estate had increased very much during the 
years from her awakening in 1880 to the nineties. Real estate 
transfers showed that during the years 1890 and 1891 the 
property changing hands in Memphis aggregated $5,183,830. 

A few items of interest recorded in 1892 by business men, 
help to show the growth of the Taxing District. The enhance- 
ment of real estate values from 1882 to 1892 had been 500 
per cent, and much property was paying from 25 to 30 per cent 
on prices paid for it in the early eighties. The Peabody Hotel, 
which at one time had brought little to its owners was reputed 
in 1892 to be returning a rental of $50,000 a year. 

People in general had lost all fear of Memphis as an 
abiding place, as was proved by the numbers that came for 
the purpose of settling and stayed. 

Business in all branches was not only hopeful but continu- 
ally increasing. Building was progressing more than ever 
before and on greater scales. Workmen were in such constant 
demand that in 1890 Memphis had two labor agencies, which 
could scarcely supply the demand for labor. 

To get an idea of the increase in business we can consult 
a few figures gathered by business men in 1892 : In 1880 the 
cotton trade, which comprised nearly all the business of Mem- 
phis at that date, aggregated for the season 470,000 bales, 
valued at $23,000,000, while for the season of 1891-92, the aggre- 
gate was 770,000 bales, valued at over $30,000,000. 

The banking capital was estimated in 1880 to be about 
$1,500,000, and in 1892 it had increased to $7,200,000. 

Besides these improvements the lumber trade had grown 
to be so important as to make Memphis one of the lumber 
centers of the world, and the grocery business, both wholesale 
and retail, had grown enormously. 

Another indication of the city's growth from the time of 
her calamities to the early nineties was the increase in the postal 
business, the figures in 1890 and 1891 showing an aggregate 
that equaled those of the city's most flourishing banks. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 223 

The United States census for 1890 gave a population of 
64,589 and in 1892 the population was estimated from the city 
directory to be 85,000. 

The nineties showed Memphis to have many new indus- 
tries and these were constantly increasing. Her municipal 
advantages were among the first of the country. Taxes had 
been reduced from $2.35 to $1.80, which encouraged home-seek- 
ers and people wishing to invest money. 

The fire department continued to grow in efficiency and 
although some destructive fires occurred they were better 
handled than formerly. In April, 1891, Hill, Fontaine & Com- 
pany's cotton-shed, situated in the old navy yard, was struck 
by lightning, which started a conflagration. This occurred 
about eleven o'clock at night and the shed was filled with 
cotton, so the flames spread rapidly, but the firemen succeeded 
in confining the damage to the shed. This fire caused the great- 
est loss of that year. 

On the night of February 8, 1892, a fire swept the block 
bounded by Main, INIonroe, Second and Union Streets. This 
fire started in the auction rooms of Rosin & Hurst, and created 
a loss of a million dollars. Among the buildings destroyed 
were Luehrman's Hotel, Lemon & Gale's wholesale drygoods 
house, Langstaff Hardware Company, Wetter & Company, 
Beine-Bruce Hat Company, Jack & Company, Wilkerson & 
Company, Levy Trunk Factory and several smaller firms. 
This destructive conflagration was supposed to have been 
started by an electric wire. 

The following year this same re-built block was much 
damaged by another destructive fire, the Wetter block being 
again demolished, other serious losers by these flames being the 
Y. M. C. A. and the Pythian Journal. Several persons being 
entrapped by this fire and consequently injured by jumping 
to safety, much blame was attributed to the neglect of fire- 
escapes and criminal negligence was charged. This unhappy 
experience started strict enforcement of the laws regarding 
fire-escapes. 

In April, 1892, flames were discovered by the night-watch- 
man, at 2:30 a. m., in an unfinished seven-story building on 



224 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Adams Street, and before the firemen could reach it much 
damage had been done. Chief Burke said of this fire, in his 
report to the Legislative Council: 

"This building formed a veritable flue, no doors or win- 
dows in, and the flooring, which was only partially laid, covered 
with highly inflammable material, pine-shavings, etc. This fire 
was discovered in its incipiency by the watchman at the Adams 
Street engine-house, the alarm promptly given and responded 
to, but owing to the condition of the building, within ten 
seconds from the time the fire was discovered, the flames had 
reached the roof and communicated to the adjoining buildings. 
It required almost superhuman efforts on the part of every 
member of the department to extinguish this fire. We had 
no ladders at that time sufficiently long to enable the men 
to reach an advantageous position, a fact detrimental to the 
interests of the city, which has since been remedied, thanks 
to your honorable body in purchasing an aerial truck." 

In November of this same year the Chief said of the new 
equipment : 

"We had an opportunity to test the new aerial truck on 
the night of November 2, at a stubborn fire which originated 
on the third floor of the building occupied by Fly, Hobson & 
Company. By means of the aerial used as a water-tower, we 
were enabled to extinguish, with a comparatively trifling loss, 
what at one time looked as if it would prove to be a disastrous 
conflagration." 

In consequence of these and other serious losses, Chief 
Burke said in his report : 

"I feel it my duty to reiterate the recommendations made 
in my last report, viz., that at least two more engine companies 
and one chemical company be placed in the suburban districts, 
as with the limited number of men and pieces of apparatus now 
constituting the fire department, it is a matter of impossibility 
or rather poor judgment, to reserve any in case of an alarm 
being sounded from the business portion of the city. * * * * A 
valuable adjunct to every well-equipped fire department is the 
latest improved 'water-tower.' In other cities the efficacy 
of these machines has been proved on numerous occasions. This 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 225 

city has suffered losses in the past which could have been saved 
if one of these 'towers' had been in service." 

He explained how a building could be flooded with one 
of these towers and so save the spread of disaster, and recom- 
mended ''the purchase of one of these 'towers' as soon as 
possible." 

In January of 1893 there was another big and destructive 
fire in which several prominent business houses and some 
smaller ones were demolished or severely damaged. The fire- 
men worked desperately and bravely this night, saving much 
property and perhaps nearly the whole business section of the 
city. When the flames reached Dean & Carroll's paint store 
most of the attention was centered on that place and the efforts 
of the hard-worked men really succeeded in quenching the 
flames before they reached the cellar in which was stored 
thousands of pounds of the combustibles and explosives kept 
in paint stock. The flremen were much exhausted by that 
night's labor and Chief Burke was injured by a falling brick. 

1892 brought forth the consummation of the great achieve- 
ment long contemplated and anticipated by hundreds of people, 
— that of joining Tennessee and Arkansas together. In May, 
1892, the great cantilever bridge that accomplished this feat 
was finished and on the 12th of that same month the bridge 
was formally opened. The Commercial called this structure a 
"notable triumph of engineering and mechanical skill." 

It had taken three and a half years to construct this steel 
connection, the work having been carried on from both ends 
simultaneously, until the middle span met. Its finished length 
from end to end, was 15,635 feet, or nearly three miles, and 
it contained 7,000 tons of steel, while in its construction had 
been used 2,000,000 feet of lumber. 

Building a bridge across the Mississippi at Memphis had 
first been agitated in 1856, but some engineers at that time 
thought the expense of such a structure would not pay for 
itself, while still others thought the scheme wholly unfeasible. 
But the subject was not dropped and continued to be brought 
forward at intervals until 1885, when an act was passed and 
approved by Congress, authorizing the construction of a bridge 



226 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

at this point. Following this act William G. Ford, Reese B. 
Edmondson and others obtained a charter in Tennessee and 
Arkansas, but lack of funds caused the matter to stand still 
until three years later, when James Phelan introduced a bill 
in the Congress, authorizing the construction of a bridge across 
the Mississippi River at INIemphis, by the Kansas City and Mem- 
phis Railway and Bridge Company. This act, which came to 
be known as the "Phelan Bill," passed and was approved April 
24, 1888. 

The act required that the bridge be seventy-five feet above 
high water mark, across the entire bed of the river, which 
provision, later carried out, caused it to extend a long way high 
over the Arkansas swamps. Many engineers were consulted and 
finally the plans of Morrison and Nettleton were accepted, the 
contractors to be two brothers, Andrew and William Baird. 

When this long-wished-for convenience was completed, 
naturally the people desired a celebration and they had a pre- 
tentious one. Numerous eminent people were invited for the 
opening and thousands of other visitors came. 

On the morning of IMay 12, 1892, a parade two miles in length 
passed through tlie streets of Memphis, headed by twenty-four 
policemen, mounted four abreast, the leading four being Chief 
Davis, Captain 'Haver, Captain Hacket and Sergeant Horan. 
FolloM'ing them was the Grand Marshal, Colonel Hugh Pettit, 
and his assistant marshals, General G. W. Gordon, Captain W. 
W. Carnes, John M. Tuther, E. A. Keeling and Honorable 
Zachary Taylor. Then followed the National Guards of Ten- 
nessee, commanded by Colonel Arthur Taylor. Arnold's band 
filled the air with music and after them came more military, 
some of these being visitors to the city. The civic societies 
were imposing in their regalias and they were followed by the 
fire department with their burnished engines and other equip- 
ment, headed by Chief Burke. The Colored Chickasaw Band 
made their instruments do justice to the occasion and follow- 
ing them distinguished guests rode in carriages, other carriages 
conveying city officials, committees, citizens, etc. After this 
long line of carriages came the artistic floats on which were 
represented the industries of Memphis. These were interesting 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 227 

as well as beautiful, and were enthusiastically received by the 
spectators. 

At and near the bridge gathered great crowds to witness, 
or to try to witness the ceremonies of opening the bridge for 
traffic. The papers estimated this crowd to number 25,000 
people. 

Soon after ten o'clock eighteen locomotives slowly entered 
the bridge and steamed back and forth, snorting and causing 
many of the onlookers to wonder what they were about. 
What they really were doing was testing the strength of the 
structure that had been built for their accommodation. Bach 
span was tested and proved satisfactory. The total weight 
of these iron horses was 3,000,0-90 pounds. 

After this test was over a decorated car, the "Tennessee 
train," on which the Tennessee Governor, Adjutant General 
Norman, Inspector-General Weakly, Quartermaster Frank and 
many other distinguished guests and Memphis people, went to 
the middle of the bridge. There this car was met by the 
"Arkansas train," on which were the Arkansas Governor and 
his party. When these cars met Governor Buchanan rose and 
said, "Governor Eagle, in the name of the State of Tennessee, 
I bring you greeting." Governor Eagle responded: "In the 
name of Arkansas I accept it. I trust that the two great states 
may ever be upon the same sisterly terms, their relations ever 
becoming closer." 

After these greetings there was a cheer and both cars 
returned to Memphis, where a platform of people awaited 
them. Colonel J. R. Godwin was chairman of the committee 
on this platform, and with him sat prominent guests from 
many states. 

After the Arkansas and Tennessee governors and their 
parties were greeted, speeches were made. Governor Buchan- 
an set forth the advantages to come from the new bridge, and 
his speech was followed by one from Governor Eagle, quite 
as patriotic and enthusiastically received. Other orations 
followed, in which were given much of the history of early 
days in the Bluff City, of navigation, development of the South 



228 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

and National progress in general, while much hope was 
expressed for the future. 

Chief Engineer Morrison and General Nettleton received 
much praise for their success in carrying the work of the bridge 
to completion and both of these modest workers displayed 
embarrassment in responding. One of them said that his 
business M^as not speech-making and hence his embarrassment. 

The night pageant was an impressive one. This procession 
was led by city officials and contained artistic floats and inspir- 
ing music. The first float represented "Aurora" and following 
the Queen of Early Day were floats containing allegorical dis- 
plays, giving the history of Memphis from aboriginal days. 

It was recorded that out of all the throng in Memphis 
on Bridge Opening Day there was not a drunken disturbance. 

The then new electric car service proved itself very effi- 
cient and these cars were to many of the visitors even more 
interesting than the big bridge, as they had never before seen 
horseless or muleless street conveyances. There were a few 
amusing incidents of people who walked long distances rather 
than trust themselves on these cars and some visitors left satis- 
fied to only look at these new rapid carriers of street passen- 
gers. Stories were circulated of watches being stopped, eye- 
sight ruined, people terribly shocked and even killed by the 
electric currents that passed through these cars. But despite 
the timid ones the cars were said to have carried on that date 
126,000 passengers. 

The gunboat "Concord" came to Memphis in honor of the 
celebration and was the first sea-going vessel many of the 
people had ever seen. It was much visited and its officers and 
crew received considerable attention. 

A round of festivities was given to visitors and many of 
the strangers expressed admiration for Memphis and for Mem- 
phis people. 

During the time committee meetings were held for various 
purposes, among these being one for discussing the possibility 
and practicability of a deep-water way through the Mississippi 
River. 

The Bridge celebration attracted much attention to the 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 229 

Bluff City and the business exchanges received numerous let- 
ters from people impressed by the growing importance of the 
place and wishing to invest capital. 

Memphis had grown and was continuing to grow so rapidly 
and her place in the world seemed now so sure that her officials 
and citizens were advocating a change from the taxing dis- 
trict government, as the time for its expediency was thought 
to have passed. There was much discussion over the subject, 
the consensus of opinion seeming to be that Memphis should 
have her identity restored. It was argued that the object for 
which the taxing district government had been formed was 
accomplished and that to longer remain under such jurisdic- 
tion was subservient and reflected upon Memphis abroad. The 
Commercial said it was time for Memphis to be divorced from 
the County and that she should fix her own tax-rate, collect 
her own taxes and spend them for her own improvements. This 
paper called for the opinions of citizens and many were given, 
mostly in favor of abandoning the taxing district form. 

General Peters said that St. Louis and Louisville had had 
similar experiences and that those now flourishing cities dated 
their prosperity from the time that each became separated 
from the county. 

Mr. J. S. Menken said that the taxing district government 
"accomplished much good, but it has fulfilled its mission, and 
is now unequal to our requirements." He advocated "home 
rule." Of taxing Mr. Menken said, "Such bungling and ignor- 
ance as are exemplified in some of our revenue laws are diffi- 
cult to parallel in the statute books of the country. It appears 
as if the makers of those laws had resolved to kill all enter- 
prise, to ignore justice, and place a fine on honesty." 

Mr. Robert Galloway said, " I see no reason for our going to 
Nashville every two years to have our 'country cousins' from 
all parts of the State, many of whom know absolutely nothing 
about city government, fix our rate of taxation." He also 
advocated a change in the taxing system, saying, "No matter 
what change we make, we can't be worsted." 

Chairman Harrell, of the County Court, only objected to 
the taxing power. He said: "It places us in an embarrassing 



230 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

attitude abroad to have the budget of the city's expenses 
audited and passed upon by the State Legislature. If it 
would be possible to maintain the present form of government 
with the power to levy taxes delegated to the local authorities, 
I would be heartily in favor of it. It is the cheapest govern- 
ment on earth, and is less liable to fraud and corruption." 

County Clerk T. B. Crenshaw declared the taxing district 
form of government "undemocratic." 

Other officials and business men gave opinions, and while 
a few desired the taxing district form of government, all 
wanted a change in the taxing system. 

Mr. Clapp, making a speech in contemplation of running 
again for the presidency, said of the taxing district govern- 
ment, "This may have been suitable enough, and satisfactory 
in results, when the cities of the State were little more than 
villages ; but when a city comes to be a metropolis, embracing 
population, wealtli and taxable property greater in number 
and value than many of the counties combined, and with widely 
diverging interests and requirements, the absurdity of the sys- 
tem is manifest. * * * * It is not easy to conceive of anything 
more illogical and oi:)pressive than the situation of your city 
dangling on the apron strings of her Nashville nurses. The 
subserviency of tlie city to the county m.ay be more tolerable 
than to the State, because the benefits are more frequent and 
of direct application, but the relationship is hardly less oppres- 
sive. ' ' 

Mr. Clapp gave as illustration some of the business pur- 
suits of Memphis, and showed the amount of revenue of each 
to the state, county and city, half of which are here given : 

State Rate Co. Rate City Rate 

Breweries $ 200 $ 200 $ 100 

Cold Storage Company 1,000 1,000 50 

Construction Company 100 100 None 

Gas Company 700 300 25 

Liquor, Wholesale 300 150 10 

Lightning Rod Agents 150 50 15 

Land Stock Company 75 75 None 

Telephone Co. (1500 in use) . . 750 750 250 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 231 

Water Company 800 800 200 

Grand Opera House Theatre.. 200 200 75 



$4,275 $3,625 $ 725 

In view of these figures one does not wonder at the general 
desire of citizens for a change in the tax-rate. 

Mr. Clapp set forth other inequalities and oppressions. In 
the course of his speech he said : ' ' The city provides good 
streets, over which the business may be economically done, 
and has them cleaned and lighted ; gives fire and police pro- 
tection ; supplies the population for trade and consumption and 
can with some conscience exact a privilege, but pray what 
help or assistance is given by the other governments to the 
dealer?" 

At this time Memphis had her moral troubles as well as 
political, as had so often happened before in her history. 
Gambling and other immoral practices had become so open- 
faced and prevalent as to cause law-abiding citizens to become 
alarmed for the youth of the city and to take measures for 
improving conditions. Some blamed the city administration, 
saying that the officials cared more for retaining a "fat 
office" than for enforcing the laws. 

In January, 1893, at a meeting of the Council, the ques- 
tions of gambling and other evils were brought before the 
members, and President Clapp made a lengthy speech on the 
subject. He said : 

"* * * * No city has ever authoritatively claimed to have 
suppressed these evils, nor will this be entirely or partially 
accomplished to the full satisfaction of every class in the com- 
munity, until poor human nature undergoes a transformation. 
Your present fire and police commissioners, whose duty it is, 
through the constituted departments to look after these social 
evils are but men, no better nor worse than sagacious officials, 
charged with similar duties in other cities. * * * * Such author- 
ity and information as the board could command led to the 
conclusion that in every city of respectable size, in all the 
states and nations, these 'social evils' were regulated and 
controlled, but not suppressed." 



232 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Mr. Clapp said that the evil of gambling had perplexed 
Memphis as far back as the oldest living citizen and officer 
could remember and that it had been impossible to put it down, 
though the city had regulated, fined, etc. He said that in 
previous years, when gambling houses had been closed and 
gamblers ordered to leave town, ''where there was formerly 
one gambling house there were then five or more gambling 
rooms." As a preventive of this evil he said that "the com- 
missioners agreed that the chief of police might permit the 
most reliable and trustworthy of the gaming men, who lived 
in Memphis, to open their houses and play four games, which, 
in the opinion of the police, offered the least opportunity for 
fraud or cheating." 

After more arguments in favor of "suppression," he con- 
cluded with: 

"I therefore submit the question to the council, with 
this suggestion: Should you be of the opinion that it is best 
for the city and her people, then request the Legislature now 
in session to repeal so much of the city's charter as gives 
the fire and police commissioners any power to regulate or 
control, and leave the charter to provide, as does the law of 
the state, for suppression only." 

This opinion of the Taxing District president was hailed 
with delight by the gamblers and other moral law breakers, 
and variously received by citizens. Members present at this 
meeting discussed the subject and the president's opinion. 
Mr. Haszinger asked, "Do you think gambling can be sup- 
pressed?" and upon the president saying that he thought it 
possible, Mr. Haszinger replied, "Well, I don't!" 

Others agreed with the president and others did not and 
arguments were vehement for a while. 

The message stirred up the citizens at large, as it had the 
Council, and upon request, men wrote their views to the 
papers. One of these, Mr. R. G. Craig, wrote: "If every 
voter who has an interest in the lawful pursuits of our city 
and county would take care to exercise his right and privileges, 
I feel sure men would be elected who would enforce proper 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 233 

measures for the proper government of our city and suppress 
criminal development." 

W. H. Leath, said: "I am opposed to gambling in all its 
forms, but I have no suggestion to make to President Clapp. 
I think he is opposed to gambling himself, but the question 
is how to handle the matter. There are many complications 
arising that are hard to deal with." 

S. H. Dunscomb, said: "I don't approve the action of 
the Council on gambling. I think where there are laws they 
should be enforced." 

Joseph Reynolds: *'I am opposed to gambling in all its 
forms, or anything that looks like it. It is all nonsense that 
it can't be stopped. I know it can, for I have seen towns 
where it was not allowed, and they were as large and as lively 
as Memphis. It simply means the law enforced to the very 
letter." 

Judge C. W. Heiskell responded: ''I see Mr. Clapp 
fortifies himself behind a long established custom, which 1 
think would be more honored in the breach than in the 
observance. * * * * I would like to ask the gentlemen of the 
council if they would invite Christian people to Memphis 
when they establish it as their policy that gamblers are to be 
given a quasi legal status in the city? Do they not think that 
it would invite Christian citizenship if they would, as they 
have the power to do, suppress gambling as the charter author- 
izes ? Do they not think further that not only Christian people 
but all other people would have more respect for law and the 
constituted authorities if those authorities would execute the 
law against law-breaking?" 

J. P. Young replied: "Mr. Clapp is mistaken in his pre- 
mises. Open gambling houses can be suppressed. A notice to 
the chief of police from the proper authorities would enable 
him to close up every house in Memphis within twenty-four 
hours. * * * * As long as the felony statute stands it is as much 
a crime to gamble in Memphis as in any other town in Ten- 
nessee." 

M. B. Trezevant said: "I don't see how gambling can 



234 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

be justified in any way. * * * * Gambling is by no means a 
necessary evil." 

D. M. Scales: "I am unable to see how a municipal cor- 
poration can license a crime forbidden by the laws of the 
State." 

On January 31, a "Law and Order League" was organized 
over Joseph Specht's on Madison Street. Judge Heiskell was 
elected president, Col. John W. Dillard, vice-president and 6. 
T. Fitzhugh, secretary. 

Much enthusiasm was expressed by the members of this 
organization, and committees were formed as follows : 

Executive : Napoleon Hill, chairman ; G. W. McCrea, J. M. 
Greer, J. M. Steen, L. Lehman, T. C. Hindman, W. B. Glisson. 
Financial : W. F. Taylor, chairman ; J. M. Goodbar, J. C. 
Norfleet, Tom Gale, J. P. Edmondson. 

Constitution and By-Laivs : E. W. Carmack, chairman ; J. 
H. "Watson, John Johnson. 

Secretary Fitzhugh submitted seventy-five names of men 
wishing to become members of the league, and he was instructed 
to enroll them. 

The S>cimitar advocated the Law and Order League and 
denounced the gamblers, as did their contemporary, the Com- 
mercial. ]\Ir. A. B. Pickett, of the Scimitar, had this to say of 
existing evils : 

"We have tried to make it very clear, since we began on the 
gambling question, how corrupt is the city. People ought to 
know about the evil that they may correct it. * * * * The extrav- 
agant burdens of taxation, the corner groceries and the power 
of political rings growing out of that thing have polluted the 
city, county and state. * * * * We have no personal malice in 
doing what Ave think right as a public journal. * * * * We are 
banking on the Commercial to stand by us in this work. ' ' 

On the evening of February 21, 1893, there was a rousing 
meeting of the Law and Order League in Jefferson Club Hall, 
which was packed to overflowing. Many votes for the betterment 
of conditions were taken that night and it is recorded that every 
ballot was unanimous. 

It would be fortunate if a community in choosing its leaders 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 235 

could always get those who would hold the good of their charges 
above selfish ends, and would respect the law they are expected 
to uphold and fairly administer. The reverse of this is some- 
times true and Memphis^ has had numerous misfortunes of this 
sort. During this part of her history, when so many good men 
were trying to make the city a clean one morally, some consid- 
ered only selfish or even dishonest gains and smiled at the efforts 
for moral uplift. A prominent lawyer of that period was dis- 
barred because of dishonest and unprofessional conduct, while 
a judge of the criminal bench so perverted his power in a tyran- 
nical and despicable manner that it finally became its own foil 
and caused him to be tried by an indignant people, the result 
being impeachment and expulsion from office. 

Such misguided characters often mar the progress of cities, 
but they cannot continue their work indefinitely as right will 
find them out. In history it would be pleasing to record only 
the good, especially as it is the strong, but history tell of the 
things that are or have been, even though the telling is some- 
times unfortunate or unpleasant. 

While Memphis was thus trying to rid herself of evil 
influence the evangelist, Sam Jones, came within her bounds 
and in his unique and strictly "Sam Jones way" did his part 
to make people ' ' quit their meanness. ' ' He preached daily and 
nightly to packed houses and in his unvarnished, straightfor- 
ward manner held hundreds of people spellbound. On the 
first of these visits he was tendered the largest church, the 
First Methodist, but when the new Auditorium on the corner 
of Main and Linden Streets was completed he M^as invited to 
open it and even in that commodius structure it was found 
almost as difficult to seat the thousands as the church had 
found in seating its hundreds. Men and women of all grades 
and professions attended these meetings and the coldest and 
rainiest days and nights found full attendance. The success of 
this man was remarkable. 

He scored Memphis officials and berated the saloons and 
gamblers, sometimes using expressions in doing so that few 
would have dared use in the pulpit. One of his pointed thrusts 
was: "You are afraid of hurting your business and making 



236 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

enemies, you are afraid of losing votes if you stand up for the 
right." 

Again: ''You will never drive gambling out of the town 
until the members of the church quit gambling for cut-glass 
vases. You will never drive the saloon out as long as the 
deacon keeps a demijohn in the closet." "If whiskey ran 
ankle deep in Memphis, and each front door had a dipper tied 
to it, you could not get drunk quicker than you can in Memphis 
now. ' ' 

He advocated that all the ministers become members of 
the Law and Order League, and that all respectable men in 
Memphis belong to it, and not be afraid. "An honest man," 
he said, "is willing to know what and where he is." He said 
that many of the people sang "Hold the Fort, — for I am going 
the other way." 

He thought that the real starting-point of morality and 
decency was in the home and said, "God help you parents to 
see that it is right in the homes, and that when the homes are 
right, everything will be right." 

In these attempts at moral cleaning up women were not 
idle. They urged their husbands, fathers, brothers, sons and 
friends on in the work and they themselves came forward 
in a public way more than ever before in Memphis history. 
In 1892 the Association for the Advancement of Women met 
here, when many distinguished women from all over the world 
were Memphis guests. Most of these women had been earnest 
workers in the cause of allowing suffrage to women as one 
means of purifying social conditions, and there were, during 
their stay here, more well-received speeches on this and other 
moral subjects than ever before in the Bluff City. The daily 
papers, all at that time more or less opposed to woman suffrage, 
praised these intellectual women and gave much space to their 
lectures, their work, ability and themselves as individuals. 

A few seasons later Miss Susan B. Anthony and Mrs. Carrie 
Chapman-Catt were guests in Memphis again, when they had 
not only good audience but enthusiastic gatherings. Mrs. Lide 
"Meriwether introduced both of these speakers and one of the 
dailies in mentioning this Memphis woman who had done so 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 237 

much for the cause of Temperance and justice for women, 
called her "deservedly popular" and praised her achieve- 
ments. 

Mrs. Meriwether did much, and some have said more than 
any other woman in the state to get the law known as the 
"age of consent law" raised from infancy, — ten years, — to an 
age when girls would at least be beyond the baby, doll-playing 
age. This age was first raised through the efforts of the untir- 
ing workers of that time to sixteen years and a few years 
later to eighteen years. 

Governor McMillan, under whose administration this last 
was accomplished, argued that he thought a wrong whereby 
a young person's whole future life was marred should be of as 
much importance in the laws of the land as those of larceny, 
vagrancy and other petty crimes. He said that if a boy 
twenty years and eleven months old made a business transac- 
tion on credit, neither he nor his parents could be held respon- 
sible for the obligation, but that if his much younger sister had 
her life wrecked by some man old enough to be her father, 
neither she nor her parents had any redress whatever. He 
thought this unjust, as did many other good men and they, 
being larger and more progressive than the then-existing law, 
listened to parents and other moral reformers and had the age 
when an inexperienced girl could be said by law to consent to 
her degradation, raised to eighteen years, an age when she 
could at least comprehend that there were human beings 
immoral enough to prey on inexperience. Another Memphis 
"Mother in Israel" who worked hard for the moral uplift of 
both sexes was Mrs. Elizabeth Lyle Saxon. 

"Women usually work hardest for moral reforms and char- 
ity, and they take advantage of opportunities offered them 
for this work. In 1895 the Commercial offered to give women 
the Valentine edition of their paper, to be conducted by women 
throughout. This offer was gladly accepted and on February 
14, after much labor, a mammoth paper was produced, con- 
taining original articles, sketches, drawings, stories, poems 
and many pages of advertisements. One department was 
devoted to men and many literary and other men contributed 



238 History of Memphis, Tennessee. _ 

meritorious articles. Arts and industries had departments, all 
of which were well conducted. The space allotted to the War 
Between the States and other memorials was conducted by- 
Mrs. Luke E. Wright, Mrs. Kellar Anderson, Mrs. J. H. 
Humphries and Mrs. M. L. Beecher, This department was 
deservedly popular, and these ladies, having experienced the 
war's disadvantages, knew how to conduct the work. 

The Board of Managers of this paper comprised : Mesdames 
C. N. Grosvenor, W. M. Farrabee, J. M. Judah, Cooper Nelson, 
J. W. Allison and James M. Greer. The business managers 
were Mesdames C. B. Galloway and M. M. Betts and the treas- 
urer, Mrs. C. F. I\I. Niles. 

The women were grateful for the liberal patronage this 
paper received and all of the proceeds of the big volume-paper 
went to the United Charities. 

The city was not cleared of evil influences and undesirable 
characters, but the work of good citizenship had its weight 
and many conditions were bettered. She was partially restored 
to cityhood and again held her place as a civic, independent 
center. 

In 1893 the Legislature passed an act declaring that "the 
president and vice-president of the board of fire and police 
commissioners of the city of Memphis shall be hereafter desig- 
nated respectively mayor and vice-mayor of the city of Mem- 
phis." And, — "That at the expiration of the respective terms 
of office of the president and vice-president of the board of 
fire and police commissioners of the city of Memphis, their 
successors respectively, shall be elected by popular vote, in 
the manner provided in said acts. The mayor of said city to 
be voted for and elected in and by that name at the expiration of 
the term of the now president of said board, and the vice-mayor 
to be elected in and by that name at the expiration of the term 
of the now vice-president of said board. The said board shall 
remain constituted as heretofore, of three fire and police com- 
missioners, the said mayor and vice-mayor to remain and be, 
as heretofore, commissioners and members of said board." 

In the race for the next election of city officers in 1893, 
three men were candidates for the mayoralty, namely, W. L. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 239 

Clapp, J. J. Williams and D. P. Hadden. The faction headed 
by each of these men held enthusiastic meetings and it was a 
spirited race. Many of the Law and Order League members 
worked for Mr. Hadden, as they said he was a positive charac- 
ter, not afraid to act, and would enforce law and collect the 
taxes. 

Mr. Clapp was elected and with him Mr. Jeptha Fowlkes, 
vice-mayor. 

City improvements went on as steadily as means would 
allow and Memphis was becoming more and more habitable. 
The city engineer reported that in 1892 $116,473.37 had been 
spent on pavements, while that year's work on sewers had made 
the complete length of the city's system 54.6 miles. 

The Artesian Water Company, with Judge T. J. Latham 
as president, and Mr. R. C. Graves, vice-president, continued 
to grow and by 1892 there were 41 artesian wells, ranging 
from 350 to 500 feet in depth and covering an area of about 
23 acres. 

Telephones increased rapidly in use and from luxuries 
had become necessities to business houses and many homes. 

Electric lights continued to improve and became popular 
as illuminating power for residences, stores and streets. 

Electric lights were first introduced into Memphis in 1882 
by the Brush Electric Light and Power Company. Three years 
later a competitor in this business came, — ^the Thompson- 
Houston Electric Company. Later the Brush Company bought 
the stock of the Thompson-Houston Company and the two 
companies became incorporated as the Memphis Light and 
Power Co. The officers of this company in 1891 were S. T. 
Carnes, president and general manager, S. H. Brooks, vice- 
president, W. W. Carnes, secretary and D. T. Porter, treasurer. 

The electric car service also continued to improve, as shown 
in the chapter on transportation. 

January 3, 1895, Mayor Clapp said there was not a cent 
of floating debt against the city, as Memphis had paid for all 
material supplied during 1894, despite the fact that receipts 
had been limited. 

Still, Memphis had causes for complaint. In this same 



240 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

month of January the Mayor and Mr. Hu Brinkley presented 
several Memphis bills to the Legislature at Nashville, the 
most important being that "To amend the general assessment 
law of 1889 ; also to amend the Taxing District Act so as to 
enable the legislative council of Memphis to fix the tax levy 
instead of the assembly." 

The ' ' debt ' ' and taxing system continued to keep Memphis 
hampered and her officials and citizens in a wrangle that 
seemed destined never to have an end. 

In 1895 the Legislature appointed a back-tax collector for 
Memphis and the city council opposed it and appointed a 
collector of their own. Mr. Clapp complained that collection 
of taxes by the state was tyranny and that ''the city of Mem- 
phis, in common with the other cities of the state, has power 
through its own selected agency and employes to collect its 
delinquent taxes." He complained that no matter how much 
Memphis needed these taxes, she must wait and let her 
expenses, incurred for officers, teachers, etc., etc., remain 
unpaid until the state turned over the money ; that during the 
period of four years proposed for the term of the tax collector 
of the state, "there will come into his hands on the basis of 
the average delinquencies for the past three years $450,000; 
and it is believed to be impossible to suggest a plausible, much 
less a valid or logical, reason why the power to collect this 
amount of taxes should be taken out of the hands of the 
chosen representatives of the city and lodged in the hands of a 
state officer, a resident of Nashville, and wholly foreign to 
every interest of the city except such as might be assumed to 
exist in any non-resident of the city clothed with so vast a 
power over the city's interests." 

In May of this year the legislature amended the act deny- 
ing Memphis the power of levying her own taxes and conferred 
upon her taxing power "to be free from restrictions and limits 
imposed" before that time. 

The reader has perhaps noted how Dr. 6. B. Thornton, 
year after year, decried the old City Hospital, setting forth 
its wretched condition, and petitioned for a new building, and 
how his successors in office reiterated his statements. It was 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 241 

a trying time for those earnest workers who felt the necessity 
of surrounding the sick with sanitary and pleasant conditions, 
but they were finally rewarded. The Legislature of 1895 passed 
an act authorizing Memphis to levy ah ad valorem tax of nine 
cents for the years of 1895, 1896 and 1897 for a new hospital, 
"the proceeds thereof to be appropriated and devoted exclu- 
sively to the building and equipping of a new hospital, and 
to the purchasing of a new hospital site, if, in the judgment of 
the Legislative Council, a new site should be deemed more desir- 
able than the present one," 

The old hospital was torn away, a new site purchased and 
a splendid new building, the plan of which was selected from 
a number of excellent plans submitted, was erected. After 
completion this hospital became one of the most important 
adjuncts of the city, and is one of the best arranged and 
equipped buildings for its purpose in the country, where hun- 
dreds of people have since received attention and comforts 
that have brought them back to useful life or made their last 
earthly days more pleasant than they would otherwise have 
been. 

This hospital has pay and free service, the latter receiving 
no less careful attention than that for which patients are for- 
tunate enough to pay. Two long wings extend from the cen- 
tral building, on either side, facsimiles of each other, one for 
white and the other for colored patients. The building is so 
arranged that other wings can be added from the central struc- 
ture, as increased patronage or demands might require. Every 
room in the building has outside ventilation and sunshine some 
part of the day. 

When the edifice was near completion, Mrs. "W. L. Surprise 
was appointed by the fire and police commissioners to the 
position of matron of the institution. Her first duty was to 
purchase all the bedding and hospital linen, the purchase and 
care of which was a greater responsibility than one without 
experience of such domestic duty can easily realize. 

In January, 1899, an ordinance was passed to establish 
a medical staff to take charge of the City Hospital, and these 
physicians assumed their duties March 1, following. 



242 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

W. C. Davis was appointed superintendent and his report, 
tendered to the mayor and eouneilmen, showed the first year's 
work to be productive of much good. Of the medical staff he 
said, "It affords me much pleasure to say that the staff have 
performed their duties well and without compensation." 

In connection with the Hospital a Training School for 
Nurses was established, the nurses to serve, under professional 
direction, in the institution while receiving their training. 

The report of Superintendent Davis for 1899 showed the 
number of patients received during the entire year to have been 
2,452, all of whom had recovered except 242. Of these, 385 
were from Mississippi, 275 from Arkansas and 738 from other 
states besides Tennessee. Memphis had furnished only 403 of 
these patients. The cash taken in from pay patients during 
that year was only $3,009.93. 

May 10, 1895, the Interstate Drill and Encampment opened 
at Montgomery Park, and was the occasion of much interest 
and enjoyment to Memphis people and visitors. Among the 
military companies was the famous Veteran Chickasaw Guards, 
whose achievements in former days had won them much recog- 
nition. 

Miss Helen Gould, one of the numerous distinguished 
guests expected, could not attend the encampment, but she sent 
a solid silver urn, skillfully chased and gold-lined, with these 
lines engraved upon it : 

"Presented to the Veteran Chickasaw Guards by Miss 
Helen M. Gould on the occasion of the Interstate Drill and 
Encampment, held at Memphis, Tenn., May 10th to 21st, 1895." 

There were daily drills at the park and several brilliant 
parades of visiting and home troops' through the streets. 

On Confederate Day, May 18, the business houses closed 
and a general holiday was enjoyed in honor of the Southern 
soldiers. 

May 20, there was a Grand Review of all the troops, the 
soldiers making a splendid spectacle in full dress. 

During these patriotic May days the Chickasaw Guards 
were enthusiastically received wherever they appeared, but 
for one time they did not carry off first honors, which was a 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 243 

disappointment to Memphis people. They were in Class A, but 
did not head the list. 

On the last day there was a great sham battle and award 
of prizes. The Thurston Rifles of Omaha carried off first 
honors and the best-drilled individual soldier was Private H. 
K. Williams of this well-drilled company. 

The Memphis Neely Zouaves led in the Zouave class, and 
Company A of the Memphis Confederate Veterans led in the 
Hardee tactics class. 

Going back to municipal affairs, we find that in June of 
1895, there were complaints because no work had been done 
on the streets, sewers, bridges and other civic necessities during 
the year, and a long list of petitions for improvements was 
presented to the city council by tax-payers who suffered incon- 
venience from this sort of neglect. Some of the petitions 
received attention, while others continued causes of complaint. 

Despite all drawbacks, however, the council declared that 
Memphis had made unusual progress in the past sixteen years 
and by the close of 1895 she was able to refund $1,300,(XK) of 
her bonds, thus saving $30,000 of annual interest. 

In the spring of 1896 there was an unnusually high flood 
that left much devastation and suffering in its wake. The 
breaking of several levees caused great destruction of prop- 
erty. Many animals were drowned and some people lost their 
lives in the flood torrents, but most of the people were saved. 
Memphis eared for over 6,000 of the refugees that year whose 
homes and other earthly possessions had been swept away. 

After this affairs went along with comparative smoothness 
until the fall of 1897, when a yellow fever scare retarded busi- 
ness somewhat. 

In September of that year a number of cases of this dread 
disease were reported in New Orleans, Mobile and other 
Southern cities, especially along the Gulf coast. There were 
some deaths and in October the disease spread considerably. 
Quarantine was very strict in Memphis but the yellow pest 
crept in. The fact was kept out of the papers for a while and 
the yellow fever deaths were reported as malarial fever, but 
the Board of Health demanded that it be made known. 



244 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Such knowledge frightened many people and there was 
an exodus of thousands, but most of the populace acted on the 
advice of the Board of Health, stayed at home and attended 
strictly to sanitation and cleanliness, as this was urged by the 
health officers to be the best quarantine, although the other 
sort was strictly enforced. 

Some papers declared quarantine unnecessary and very 
disastrous to business, but it lasted all through October and 
was not lifted until November 5th. 

The tension through October was great but an epidemic 
was averted although Memphis had so many more people than 
she had during her former disastrous experiences from this 
plague. Some physicians said such a catastrophe was averted 
because of the cleaner condition of the city, while others 
declared that the cool-headedness of the people who remained 
in the city helped more than anything elese. "Fear," said 
one, "is a greater devastator than disease itself," and fear was 
not allowed to enter to the extent of getting the upper hand 
that year. 

Three new cases were reported the day before the quar- 
antine was lifted and there were a few scattered cases after, 
but danger was declared past and people came flocking home. 

After this unsettling experience was over business was 
resumed with renewed vigor and the people advocated adding 
many of the suburbs to the corporation of the city, as the 
greater number of inhabitants lived beyond the city limits. 
This was necessary, many of the citizens claimed, that more 
of the inhabited territory might have civic improvements and 
enforced sanitation. 

There were croakers who declared that the following year 
would produce an epidemic worse than any ever known before 
because there were so many more people but the majority were 
optimistic and they were correct for the year following was 
free from fever, as have been the fifteen years ensuing. An 
occasional quarantine has been enforced because yellow fever 
has made a feeble appearance further south, but just as this 
plague grew to be a thing of the past in New York, Philadel- 
phia and other Northern cities, so it has become a pest and 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 245 

dread of the past to Memphis. It is claimed that the discovery 
of the yellow fever mosquito will put an end to the plague in 
future. 

On November 18, 1897, there was a conference in the 
city hall between the city council and two committees of 
suburban residents, presided over by Mayor Clapp, for the 
purpose of discussing the annexation of more territory to the 
city of Memphis. This was an enthusiastic meeting, with many 
speeches, suggestions, objections, etc. Some advocated that 
the limits be extended only a short distance while others 
objected that this would be no advantage, as many people 
would then build just outside the limits to avoid city taxes 
and that in a few years conditions from lack of sanitation 
would be the same as those then in the outskirts of town. 

Large extensions would of course necessitate extending 
sewers and water-pipes at great expense and there were argu- 
ments for and against the advisability of this action. 

Those in favor of extending the lines won in the arguments 
for in February, 1898 the Legislature passed an act extending 
the limits of Memphis, thus : 

Beginning at a point on the east bank of Wolf River, at 
the west end of the south line of Maple Street if extended west 
to Wolf River, running thence eastward with the south line 
of Maple Street if extended to the west line of Breedlove 
Avenue ; thence south with the west line of Breedlove Avenue 
to the south line of Vollentine Avenue; thence east with the 
south line of Vollentine Avenue to the west line of Watkins 
Avenue ; thence south along the west line of Watkins Avenue 
to the north line of the right of way of the Raleigh Springs 
electric line; thence east with the north line of said right of 
way to the west line of Cooper Avenue; thence south with the 
west line of Cooper Avenue to the north line of Central Avenue ; 
thence west with the north line of the Central Avenue, to a 
point north of the west line of Brown Avenue ; thence south 
with the west line of Brown Avenue to the south line of the 
right of way of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Rail- 
road Company; thence west with the south line of said right 
of way to a point opposite the west line of Rayner Avenue; 



246 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

thence south with the west line of Rayner Avenue to the north 
line of the right of way of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad 
Company; thence east along the north line of said right of 
way to a point opposite the west line of Ragan Avenue ; thence 
south along the west line of Ragan Avenue to the north line 
of Austin Avenue ; thence west along the north line of Austin 
Avenue to the west line of Raleigh Avenue ; thence south along 
the west line of Raleigh Avenue if extended to the northeast 
corner of Calvary Cemetery; thence westward along the north 
line of said cemetery to its northwest corner; thence south 
along the Avest line of said cemetery one thousand feet to the 
center of Kerr tract ; thence west with the center line of Kerr 
tract to the east bank of the Mississippi River; thence north- 
ward w^ith the meanderings of the east bank of the Mississippi 
River to the south line of Wolf River where it empties into the 
Mississippi River; thence northeast up the meanderings of 
said bank of Wolf River to the point of beginning. 

The Act authorizing these boundaries also authorized the 
city of Memphis to divide her territory "into such wards as 
may be necessary or may attach parts of the same to the 
wards now in existence." 

The annexed territory was to be exempt from paying 
former debts of the city and from taxation for police, fire and 
light departments for ten years. 

Despite the fever scare, the clearings of IVIemphis for 
November, 1897 exceeded those of November, 1896, 
$1,856,240.60, those for 1896 showing $10,635,361.04. And the 
bank clearings for the week ending December 11, 1897, were 
$3,386,523.77, while the same week the previous year showed 
$2,930,454.64 and the same week in 1895 showed $2,624,143.45 



1 



CHAPTER XI 



J. J. Williams Elected Mayor. Death of Senator Harris. T. B. 
Turley Appointed Senator. Gambling Houses Closed. 
Further Extension of the City Limits. Collection of Taxes 
Authorized. Sewer Extension. Visit of President 
McKinley. Great Confederate Reunion. Williams is 
Reelected Mayor. Municipal Ownership of Water works. 
Purchase of the Old Plant. Attempt to Amend Charter. 
Memphis Streets Renamed. Quarantine. 



(§ 



N JANUARY 6, 189.8, J. J. Williams was elected mayor 
of Memphis, D. P. Hadden, vice-mayor and W. B. 
Armour, secretary. The board of fire and police com- 
missioners of this administration comprised the three just 
named and Hu L. Brinkley. The supervisors of Public Works 
were E. C. Green, B. R. Henderson, G. D. Raine, William 
LaCroix, H. H. Litty, P. J. Moran, Thomas Clark, E. J. Carring- 
ton and W. B. Armour, clerk. 

Dr. Heber Jones was president of the Board of Health 
and Dr. Marcus Haase, secretary. 

Jerome E. Richards was Chief of Police. Wm. F. Carroll, 
Chief of the Fire Department. 

John H. Watkins, City Attorney, A. T. Bell, City Engineer. 

W. C. Davis, Superintendent of the City Hospital. 

These and all other city officials went into office January 
17, 1898. 

On the night of February 3, Memphis did honor at the 
Auditoriumi to one of her sons, Thomas B. Turley, who had 
been appointed by Governor Robert L. Taylor to succeed the 
late, lamented Senator Isham G. Harris. Mayor Williams 
introduced Judge Greer as chairman of the meeting, and 
Judge Greer, in his own inimitable manner introduced the 
guest of honor, Senator Turley. 



248 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

When the new senator stepped before the audience 
applause and cheering made it impossible for him to be heard 
for some time, but finally the audience subsided and Mr, 
Turley thanked the people for this reception and for all they 
had done for him. 

After Memphis boundaries had been extended the city 
went to work to improve Greater Memphis. The increased 
property value amounted to $8,000,000. Memphis was now 
the largest city in the state and had much to do to get all 
within her boundaries in running order. 

One of the first benefits to suburbanites who had come into 
the corporation was diminishing their car-fares by getting 
transfers to the different lines of the city. They also profited 
from the extension of streets, sewers, lights and educational 
facilities. 

Early in February all the gambling houses were closed and 
their proprietors thrown out of business, if preying on the 
possessions of others can be called a business. This prompti- 
tude of the new city administration surprised the gamblers, 
but many of them said it was only a temporary suspension 
and waited around to see whether they would be allowed to 
resume or if, as the Commercial expressed it, they would have 
to "seek pastures new." 

February 15, the Battleship Maine was blown up in 
Havana harbor, and Memphis, with all the Country, became 
very patriotic and little was discussed beside this catastrophe. 
The accident theory was at first accepted but the people soon 
grew to believe that treachery lay at the bottom, especially 
when Spain commenced to send war boats and torpedoes to 
Havana. Investigation proceedings were instituted and the 
spirit of war and revenge became rampant until war was finally 
declared. 

For months papers teemed with war news almost to the 
exclusion of other events. War was east of us in Cuba and 
west in the Philippines, and many of our young men were 
called both ways. West Tennessee militia companies centered 
in Memphis and for a while the Bluff City seemed to have 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 249 

revived the days of the sixties except that this time her boys 
all wore the blue. 

But the fields of action were distant and Memphis, with 
her additional territory, had much home work to do. In 1898 
her limits had been extended, as we have seen, and the city 
officials had put in many improvements, besides keeping up 
those of the old part of the city. In January, 1899 the Legis- 
lature passed another bill extending the limits still further, 
thus: 

"Commencing where the north line of Trigg Avenue 
touches the Mississippi River at low water mark ; thence east 
with the north line of Trigg Avenue to Raleigh Avenue ; thence 
east with the north line of Trigg Avenue if extended to the 
intersection of the Pidgeon Roost road and Cooper Avenue ; 
thence north with the west line of Cooper Avenue to the inter- 
section of Old Raleigh road; thence north to a point where 
VoUentine Avenue, if extended east, would intersect the west 
line of Cooper Avenue as produced; thence west along said 
south line of VoUentine Avenue as produced east, to Marley 
Avenue; thence west on the south line of VoUentine Avenue 
produced west, to the south line of Brinkley Street; thence 
west along the south line of Brinkley Street as now opened 
and as produced west, to the east bank of Wolf River at low 
water mark; thence in a southerly direction along the east 
bank of Wolf River to the Mississippi River ; thence along the 
east line of Mississippi River at low water mark to the point 
of beginning. ' ' 

Another act passed at the same session enabled the city 
to levy her own taxes for her own purposes, and in April of 
the same year the Legislature authorized "That all commis- 
sions, which have been paid or turned over to the County of 
Shelby, for the collection of the taxes of the city of Memphis, 
since January 1, 1899, shall be refunded by the county to the 
city of Memphis, and hereafter no commissions for the collec- 
tion of the taxes of the city of Memphis shall be paid to the 
County of Shelby, or collected out of its current taxes or by 
the county trustee. ' ' 

Memphis was also empowered by Act of this same Legisla- 



250 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

ture, to provide for the collection of her current and delinquent 
taxes and was "vested with the power to establish the office of 
tax receiver," and to elect or employ said tax collector by her 
legislative council. 

She was vested with full city powers as to appointing the 
time and place for collecting taxes, to fix delinquencies, pen- 
alties, costs, advertisements, etc. She was "vested with full 
and complete power to establish, by ordinance, and to enforce 
in any manner advisable any and all measures necessary or 
expedient for the collection of the current and delinquent 
taxes of such city, and all such measures and acts of all officers 
and persons acting thereunder shall be as valid and binding as 
if such measures were enacted by the Legislature." 

Although still under the weight of the debt begun in her 
helpless days, Memphis was practically restored to the full 
privileges of cityhood, and was no longer dubbed merely a 
taxing district, though in fact it continued to be one in modi- 
fied form. 

The "Williams administration" started in to do conscien- 
tious work and much was accomplished under the difficulties pre- 
vailing. 

Mr. Williams, in his report for 1899, said: 

"By the addition of twelve square miles of territory, part 
of which was thickly settled, having many miles of unpaved 
streets totally lacking in sewers or any other means of sanita- 
tion, wholly without provision for lights, fire or police pro- 
tection, and having a very limited mileage of water or gas 
pipes, there was thrust upon our shoulders a very mountain 
of responsibility and difficulty, the magnitude of which few 
of our people are conscious of. * * * * If we had all the money 
wanted the needed improvements could be rapidly accom- 
plished ; but, our tax rate, while lower than in former years, 
is as high as our people are willing to bear. I therefore 
recommend that the rate of taxation for general purposes 
remain the same as it was last year, and that by a judicious 
appointment of the budget and an economical administration 
of affairs, the improvements demanded by our people be 
pushed to the utmost limits of our resources." 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 251 

During this year thirty-six miles of sewers were laid, cost- 
ing $141,930.99, as against twenty miles for the previous year, 
costing $166,955.49.* 

The Board of Health had a good report for the work of 
the year 1899, both in the old and annexed territory. Among 
other improvements for the latter, two crematories had been 
built, as cremating garbage had now become a prevalent sys- 
tem in Memphis. 

The sanitary inspector of the health department, Dr. J. L. 
Andrews, expressed gratification for the fact that citizens and 
property owners had generally been prompt in making sewer 
connections and in complying with other demands. These 
owners had been rewarded by having their property increased 
in value from ten to twenty-five per cent. 

The Sanitarian, a periodical of New York, had to say of 
the condition of Memphis at that time : ' ' The health of Mem- 
phis is of abiding interest as an object lesson for sanitarians, 
and it is gratifying to observe that her health authorities are 
constantly alive to the importance of cleanly local conditions." 

The Artesian Water Company reported 125,835 feet or 25 
miles of water-pipes laid in 1899. 

The street commissioner, Mr. George Haszinger, reported 
that there had been grading, rounding up of dirt streets, clean- 
ing gutters, filling sewer ditches and approaches to new bridges 
mainly in the annexed territory, but sufficient money had not 
been allowed to insure half the work needed, some of the 
streets in the annexed portions of the city being in very bad 
condition. Mr. Haszinger recommended a new sweeping 
machine, new carts for hauling sweepings and a stable owned 
by the city for housing city street cleaning property. 

The police and fire departments made good showings for 
the closing of the century, according to their facilities, but both 
these departments felt the need of additions to their forces, 
the added miles of city territory requiring it. Chief Richards 
said of this : 

"The area of territory to be patrolled and protected was 
increased from four miles (the area of the old city limits) to 

♦Engineer's Report. 



252 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

sixteen miles, which additional territory was annexed by an 
act of the Legislature, and embraced all the thickly settled 
suburbs to the north, east and south of the old city limits. 
This annexation made the increase of the force imperative, and 
one sergeant and eighteen men were added to the regular 
patrol force, which, up to March 1, 1899, was limited to forty- 
five men." 

The entire number of patrolmen of that time was only 
sixty-three for both reliefs which. Mayor Williams said was 
''wholly inadequate to properly guard the territory of sixteen 
square miles." 

Chief Richards suggested that in order to get conscientious 
work from policemen they should be paid sufficient to enable 
them to support families and, when too old to work, should 
be pensioned on half pay, when the better part of their lives 
had been spent in the service. 

He praised the detective force, through whose agency he 
reported $15,656.85 worth of property to have been restored 
to the owners. 

Of the police matron the chief said: "I cannot speak in 
too high terms of praise of the work performed by Miss M. E. 
Roark, the police matron. Her position is a most trying one, 
and is not confined alone to the searching of females who have 
been arrested. Abandoned infants, homeless girls, poverty- 
stricken families, and all the misery that follows broken homes, 
deserted wives and helpless children, it has been her task to 
succor and relieve." 

A report of her work showed 140 white and 360 colored 
female prisoners searched. 

Strangers cared for in Matron's Apartment 504 

Girls placed in Reformatories 18 

Employment secured for Girls and Women 74 

Children cared for 50 

Children placed in Orphan Asylums 14 

Infants given to families for adoption 24 

Homes found for children between the ages of four and 14 10 
infants that died while in her charge 2 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 253 

This did not include medicine and clothing distributed 
among the poor whom she visited. 

Chief Carroll of the Fire Department, reported sixty-five 
as his total force, including himself. Much of the vigilance 
of this department has been spent in discovering and removing 
or remedying defects and dangerous conditions of property. 
There were 442 of these reported and the chief said, "An ounce 
of prevention is worth a ton of cure." 

Six hundred and six plugs and hydrants were at the service 
of the Fire Department at that time, and their property at the 
close of the century was valued at $191,300.00. 

Mayor Williams said : ' ' The rapid growth of the old city, 
as well as the addition of the annexed territory, demand a 
greater number of fire-engines and the maintenance of the 
facilities of this department at the highest standard." 

Several large fires and many small blazes, some of which 
would have resulted direfully but for the quick work of the 
firemen, were reported for 1899, the total fire loss for that year 
showing $906,452.14, as against insurance for $1,500,891.73. 

The City Secretary, W. B. Armour, showed that on Janu- 
ary 1, 1900, there was $11,140.23 on hand, after the expenses of 
the city had been paid, besides $58,000 of annexed territory 
taxes that had been repaid, according to an act of 1899,* mak- 
ing that requirement. 

The total receipts shown for this year were $925,936.40 
and the disbursements $873,658.64. 

Mayor "Williams, in concluding his report for the year 
ending December 31, 1899, said to the councilmen: 

"In conclusion, allow me to remind you that we have in 
our hands the welfare of a great and prospering city. The 
responsibility upon us is great. Numerous questions of the 
very highest importance demand our earnest and immediate 
action. The people have recently expressed their confidence 
in us. Let us handle these questions in a way which will 
demonstrate that we deserve their confidences. Each of us 
is entitled to a full expression of his views, but due considera- 

*House Bill 124, Acts of 1899, approved Jan. 25th. 



254 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

tion for each other and the harmonious action of the Council as 
a whole is necessary to the public weal." 

With the opening of the new century the one-time unfor- 
tunate Memphis had left fears behind and seemed to be stead- 
ily climbing the road to prosperity. The eyes of the world 
seemed to be turned upon her and many newspapers com- 
mented on her achievements and future. The census of 1900 
gave the city a population of 102,320, which caused great 
rejoicing, but in fact the city census had been fraudulently 
"padded" about 20,000 names, as the people of the city only 
found out a decade later. 

Her growth during the past decade showed an increase 
on the face of the figures of fifty-nine per cent while in truth 
it was only twenty-nine. However, eleven steam-railways 
steamed in and out her confines and the river facilities were 
excellent. 

The Nineteenth Century had been a wonderful span of 
time for humanity, having brought more advancement than 
any other in the world's history. All sciences had made great 
strides; many helpful discoveries had lightened many forms 
of labor and brought luxuries before undreamed of; art had 
both made much advancement and resuscitated bygone skill; 
universal peace had grown in favor and the brotherhood of man 
had gained a firm foundation. 

In April of 1901 President McKinley, his wife and their 
party visited Memphis and were cordially received. From the 
station they were escorted by Company A, Confederate Veter- 
ans, who formed a guard around the President's carriage, all 
the way to Court Square. 

In Court Square a stand had been erected for the speak- 
ing, where Mayor Williams presented the President to the great 
throng gathered to see and hear him. The mayor gave a grace- 
ful introduction, to which the President responded quite as 
gracefully. He paid high tribute to Tennessee and to Tennes- 
see soldiers, then showed he knew something of Memphis 
history by mentioning her bitter trials of past years. He praised 
her for overcoming difiiculties as she had, predicting for the 
Bluff City a great future. He called Memphis the leading 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 255 

commercial city of the Middle South, and in paying tribute to 
her bravery and energy, said : ' * No other city in your country 
has suffered more than Memphis and no other city has over- 
come so completely adversity as Memphis." He expressed 
high regard for General Luke E. Wright who, he said, was 
doing his duty in the Philippines, just as he had done it in 
Memphis. 

The President and his wife received many honors while 
here, for which they expressed appreciation, and no celebrated 
visitors ever left kindlier feelings in the hearts of their hosts 
than these two and their distinguished party. So it was with 
doubly deep sorrow that Memphians heard a month later of 
the serious illness of Mrs. McKinley, and later in the year of 
the terrible assassination of Mr. McKinley, one of the noblest 
souls that had ever held high office. 

On the day of his funeral, September 19th, Memphis 
respected his memory by closing her business houses in the 
afternoon and draping them in mourning. The churches also 
had services on that day and church and fire bells tolled during 
the time of the funeral procession. At a mass meeting held 
for the purpose, resolutions of sorrow on the death of the 
President were drawn up and passed. 

In May, 1901, the Confederate Reunion was held here, 
and Memphis had been preparing for the reception and enter- 
tainment of the soldiers for months. Eighty thousand dollars 
had been contributed for the purpose and conspicuous in the 
contributions was a check for $1,000 from Robert Church, an 
ex-slave who, by his industry, had made for himself a fortune 
in Memphis. His contribution was accompanied by a letter, 
showing high merit and refined feeling. 

All the railroads reduced rates for the Reunion and these 
trains, with extra cars and schedules, came to the city with 
load after load of visitors, the number during the Reunion 
being 125,580,* more guests than she had inhabitants. This 
included eighteen thousand veterans. 

The city was beautifully decorated in honor of the soldiers, 
some of the arches being feats of artistic skill, while bunting 

♦"Commercial Appeal." 



256 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

and flags, — Confederate and Union, — waved in all directions. 

General John B. Gordon of Georgia, was at that time Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Confederate Veterans and he received 
much attention and many honors. The papers were filled with 
Reunion affairs, war reminiscences and pages and pages of 
pictures of soldiers, officers, sponsers, etc. 

In the address of welcome to the Veterans, IMayor Williams 
said many loving things, expressing the general feeling of the 
people, — which was one of reverence and tenderness for the 
men who had lost a cause and then suffered untold humiliations 
heaped upon them by the worst element of their enemies. 

But these men have again reached a state of citizenship as 
high as they and their fathers had enjoyed before the war. Sons 
and daughters of these heroes, born Americans and loyal to their 
birth, yet revere and honor their fathers who fought for a 
cause they believed to be just, and are keeping green the mem- 
ory that would otherwise die before many more years. 

Bishop Gailor addressed the Sons of Veterans in an elo- 
quent speech, as he can so well do, especially when talking 
to young men. At the conclusion of this address he said: 
"There is no virtue more manly or more precious than filial 
reverence for the traditions of one's own people, and there 
is no patriotism so enduring and so reliable as that which begins 
with and proceeds from the honest, the firm, the unswerving 
affection for one's own section and one's native land." 

On May 30, there was a mammoth parade, greeted and 
cheered by thousands, especially that part of the procession 
made up of the soldiers. Cheers, tears, yells, waving and all 
possible demonstrations greeted them. 

Many tributes were paid during the Reunion to the 
South 's leaders and the Confederate Veterans were never and 
will never be more honored than they were in May, 1901, in 
Memphis, by the thousands who revered and loved them so. 

Great efforts were made in 1901 to lesson evils and pro- 
mote all kinds of municipal benefits. An act was passed this 
year enabling Memphis to levy an ad valorem tax of $1.00 
on the $100.00 of all taxable property within the city limits, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 257 

to improve streets, highways and bridges and to complete the 
sewer system. 

During this same year the city won a suit requiring real 
estate agents and others to consider city health, comfort and 
convenience in laying off subdivisions, and all other precautions 
possible were taken to keep up the standard of city health and 
to increase it. 

Growth was shown by the constant increase of popula- 
tion, which had passed the 100,000 point, by the phenomenal 
building permits, growth of manufactures and by the increase 
in Bank and Clearing House receipts. During the last five 
years of the Nineteenth Century bank clearings had increased 
nearly sixty per cent, and the Clearing House showed in May, 
1901, $12,157,500.58, as against $9,949,648.76 for May, 1900, 
and this, after caring for over 100,000 visitors at the Reunion. 

At this time Memphis was the leading manufacturing city 
in the state and she owned much of her precedence in this 
and other advancement to the Industrial League. 

In January, 1902, an election was held for Mayor, when 
Mr. Williams was reelected with the entire Democratic ticket, 
having had little opposition, for a term of four years. It was 
said that the four years of the Williams administration ending 
with December, 1901, were among the most prosperous in the 
history of Memphis. 

Sanitation in Memphis at this time w^as said to be a " model 
for the world." 

The people complained of high taxes and the high price 
of water and lights, and the municipal ownership of these con- 
veniences grew in favor. In 1898 the Legislature had passed 
a bill authorizing the city of Memphis to control her own water 
works, and under a contract between the water works and 
Memphis the city was given the right to buy the existing plant. 
Judge Latham said that meters would obviate all trouble and 
he urged their use. He said that under the then existing sys- 
tem there was so much waste of water that the company could 
not afford to cut the rates as the city demanded without bank- 
rupting the water company, but that meters would reduce 
individual consumption and so the general expense. 



258 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Meters were put in where people wanted them but their 
use was discouraged. Dr. Jones, President of the Board of 
Health, said that the meters would bring about more evils than 
cures and the plan became so unpopular that Judge Latham 
refused any further controversy on the subject. A committee 
was appointed in February, 1902, composed of E. B. LeMaster, 
chairman, B. R. Henderson and Ed. F. Grace, to investigate 
the situation. They made a report the following May, and after 
setting forth the conditions of the contract between the city 
and the Water Company, existing conditions of the meters, flat 
rates, water quality, etc., they recommended that the city either 
buy the water plant then in existence or construct one of their 
own. 

The mayor was opposed to municipal ownership and most 
of the councilmen agreed with him, but some argued that it 
was the only wise solution of the problem and citizens generally 
favored it, so it was the plan finally agreed upon. The com- 
mittee was authorized to negotiate with the Water Company 
and in December, 1902, Mr. Armour, the City Secretary 
received a communication from the Water Company 
accepting the proposition of the city to buy the plant and to 
"pay off in cash the floating indebtedness of the company," 

On January 27, 1903, the committee, of which Mr. LeMas- 
ter was chairman, held a meeting to receive bids for $1,250,000 
water bonds. Three bids were made but rejected, and the 
committee was authorized to sell the ''$1,250,000 of 4 per cent 
30-year water bonds at the best price obtainable, but at a price 
not less than par." 

After much controversy and many business transactions, 
matters were finally settled and the city possessed the water 
plant with all its properties, since which time water has been 
furnished at as low rate as possible to good business judgment, 
and wrangling in that branch of municipal affairs has ceased. 

In 1902 the Water Company had sunk six new wells and in 
1905 eight more were sunk, as the former wells were inade- 
quate to supply the greatly increased demand for water. 

In April, 1902, all the gambling houses were closed and, 
as of old, the gamblers waited around for the time to come 




'■^ 



X 




O-'i-x 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 259 

when they could open their houses or rooms again. This time, 
however, they stayed closed so much longer than on former 
occasions that in February, 1903, the gamblers appealed to 
the city council, promising to keep orderly houses, refuse to 
allow intoxicated persons into their places or youths under 
twenty-one, and to close at the hour of night required. These 
men argued that closing their houses had injured the city 
in many ways and had caused suffering to the families of the 
gamblers. One wonders that men having such a fluctuating 
existence should not change their employment. Each year 
added to the uncertainty of their positions and laws were 
gradually closing round them. 

In 1905, when some of them had grown to believe that 
they again had a foothold in Memphis, the Legislature passed 
an act authorizing taxing districts to suppress gaming houses 
and punish gaming by fine and imprisonment, this act taking 
from taxing districts the "power to control and regulate" and 
to make it their duty to suppress gaming houses.* 

The trusts, so steadily gaining power all over the country, 
affected Memphis as well as other places and the increase in 
cost of living was very noticeable. 

The year 1903 found the street-car service very insufficient 
for city needs. In September of that year the company added 
thirty new cars and it was required under the franchise of the 
company that they do $100,000 worth of street paving. In Decem- 
ber this company was given a fifty-year franchise. In 1905 
it changed hands after which further improvements were 
made. 

A bill was framed for the Legislature of 1903, amending 
the Memphis charter, but many people objected to its provisions 
and at the same time it went to the Capitol, a petition went, 
signed by 13,000 Memphis citizens, to defeat the same. One of 
the objectionable provisions was the creation of the office of tax- 
assessor; that officer to be elected by the council. Many citi- 
zens said that this and other objects of the bill would bring 
back some of the old conditions before 1879. After much 
fighting for and against, the bill was passed with a proviso 

♦Acts of 1905. 



260 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

that it should be submitted to Memphis people for approval 
or rejection at an election to be held in July. At this time the 
tax-assessor was to be elected by the people, but in the mean- 
time one was to be employed by the city government of their 
own choosing. 

Scarcity of money was very apparent in 1903 and the 
mayor felt the necessity of curtailing asphalt and other city 
work, but there was a great demand for building and the 
general growth of the city was steady. The amusements were 
all well patronized, the streets were crowded and old residents 
saw many more new than familiar faces on the streets. The 
postal increase was large, bank clearings excellent and the public 
school system had grown to be more extensive than that of any 
other city in the state. 

The Commercial Appeal said at this time: "You can hear 
the town growing early in the morning before the street-cars 
are running." 

Mayor Williams entered upon his second term without 
opposition, but politics later caused dissensions, as is so often 
the case where there are many men of many minds. These 
dissensions continued and increased as the years went on. 

The News made war on the Williams administration, 
accusing it of profligate expenditure of the city's money, etc., 
while others complained because the mayor tried to reduce 
expenses. He said there should be no extensive civic improve- 
ments while the city funds were so low. The added territory 
gave more responsibility, more work to be done and more 
people to be satisfied or dissatisfied. 

The bank clearings of 1904 exceeded those of 1903 twenty- 
two per cent, and the increase for ten years previous was 171 
per cent, while the Clearing House showed an increase of 
$48,000,000 over 1903. Building permits for this same year 
showed $3,274,398.35 and the volume of trade, $436,000,000. 

In 1905 Memphis streets were renamed and the names 
placed on corners. Those running north and south were called 
streets and those running east and west, avenues. Many old 
land-marks like DeSoto, Hernando, and others originally named 
for early settlers and builders of Memphis had their names 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 261 

changed, which change was not to the liking of many old 
residents. 

In the summer of 1905 yellow fever made its appearance 
in New Orleans and other Southern points, but the Commercial 
Appeal said "Memphis is serene." 

The mosquito theory was prevalent by that time and the 
health officers in their house to house inspection saw that no 
water was allowed to stand in pools, barrels, or otherwise. 
Cisterns were condemned as mosquito breeders and people 
forced to use city water. Dr. Albright, president of the State 
Board of Health at that time, declared Memphis to be "a 
health resort," so favorable were her health reports. 

Many business people were opposed to quarantine, but 
after a mass meeting held to discuss the subject, the matter 
was left in the hands of Mayor Williams and Dr. Jones, Presi- 
dent of the Board of Health. They decided quarantine to be 
safe and that too much was at stake to act recklessly. 

Meetings were held by business exchanges, city officials and 
others, all coming to the final agreement that while quarantine 
would inconvenience business and travelers, it and cleanliness 
were the safest methods. Quarantine went into effect July 29, 
and after being enforced became very strict. It was not lifted 
until October. Rumors got abroad occasionally that someone 
had the disease in Memphis but these were wholly false and 
the fever did not get into the city at all. 

On November 23, following the excellent management of 
the "fever scare," there was a meeting held in the Cotton 
Exchange Building, where Dr. Heber Jones was presented with 
a check of $10,000, a gift from Memphis citizens, in appreciation 
of his splendid services to the city. Doctor Jones had given 
up a very large and lucrative practice to become President of 
the Board of Health, that he might serve the city, and had 
been unsparing of himself in pursuing the duties he had taken 
upon himself, and the fact of the yellow fever being kept 
entirely from our borders and so preventing untold calamity 
to the city, was most largely due to his vigilance. 

In presenting him with the check Mr. Caldwell made the 
presentation speech and gave the doctor a book containing the 



262 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

names of several hundred subscribers to the gift. After Doctor 
Jones responded, expressing deep feeling for Memphis people 
and their appreciation of his services, he was tendered an 
ovation. 

In 1905 the Circuit Court work had become so heavy that 
three new divisions were added. Judge Walter Malone being 
appointed to the second division. Judge A. B. Pittman to the 
third and Judge H. W. Laughlin to the fourth. The judge of 
the fourth division was given jurisdiction of divorce proceedings 
before that time vested in the second circuit court, which was 
abolished. 




-■ l^rYi^-^j -SSra /'AT 




^^-^ 



7- CHAPTER XII 

J. H. Malone Elected Mayor. Attack Upon Charter. Commis- 
sion Government Established and Declared Unconstitu- 
tional. Reduction of Tax Rate. Flippin Compromise 
Bonds Refunded. Police Department Work. Improve- 
ment of Water System. The City's Real Estate. Front 
Foot Assessment Law. Pensioning Policemen. City Limits 
Again Extended. Greater Memphis. Resume of Progress, 
1909. 



'^i N THE fall of 1905, Messrs. J. J. Williams and James H. 
A\ Malone had an animated race for the mayoralty. There 
^^ were rousing mass-meetings for nights before the elec- 
tion and each candidate set forth in his platform unfailing 
attention to streets and other civic improvements, schools, 
taxes, etc. The election was held November 9, and Mr. Malone 
was elected. The opposing faction claimed that his election was 
fraudulent and tried to keep the new mayor from going into 
office, but he entered upon his turbulent duties in January, 1906. 
Much work was accomplished during that year, despite the 
depleted treasury and political upheaval, and Mr. Malone 
carried on with zest improvements begun by Mr. Williams, 
besides instituting many new ones. 

Enemies of his administration did not cease to contend 
that the election had been fraudulent, and they elected to the 
Legislature of 1907 members who promised to have the city 
charter annulled, that the mayor and other officials might be 
removed from office and others put in their places. They suc- 
ceeded temporarily in their plan, passed the commission bill 
and Mayor Malone was ejected from office. The case was 
appealed to the Supreme Court and there it was decided that 
the newly made commission form of government was uncon- 
stitutional, so two months after the Malone officials had been 



264 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

put out of office they returned to take up the broken threads 
of their work. This disorganization of government had not 
been beneficial to the city and hampered the administration, 
but by degrees matters became adjusted and the administra- 
tion continued its work. 

There were disheartening conditions in some respects. 
City debts amounted to $200,000, some of these being of several 
year's standing. In order to do the essential work on streets, 
bridges, sewers, etc., it was necessary to make an overdraft of 
$87,950.18, while the fire, police and health departments were 
each forced to make overdrafts to meet their expenses. 

Mayor Malone believed in the granolith sidewalks, that 
his predecessor had introduced and he had many miles of board, 
cinder and old brick sidewalks replaced with the smooth, sat- 
isfactory walks of granolith. He also had old wooden bridges 
removed and concrete put in their places and muddy streets, 
walks and roads lessoned appreciably as this administration 
progressed in its work. 

In the beginning of his term Mr. Malone could see no way 
to reduce taxes and carry on city expenses, but as good man- 
agement lessened these and adjustments in general grew, the 
taxes were lowered in 1907 to $1.97, and a year later to $1.91, 
the lowest taxes Memphis had had for thirteen years. The 
mayor complained that the railroads, street railways, light, 
telegraph and telephone companies did not pay their share 
of city taxes, and at the beginning of 1908, the assessments of 
these different companies was increased nearly $2,000,000. 
Mayor Malone 's report showed that "The city derived from 
these public utility corporations in 1907 in ad valorem taxes 
$96,722.04, which includes the North Memphis levee, park and 
Cossitt Library special taxes." 

In 1905 the Legislature had repealed the variable ward tax- 
rates of the city and provided that all wards of the city should be 
uniformly taxed. This in turn was repealed in 1907, but it 
was not enacted that the former three rates should be revived 
and they were not. Later the bill was passed for a commis- 
sion form of government, which also sanctioned uniform ta:^ation 
throughout the city and this has' since been the rule. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 265 

The Mayor's report showed that during 1906-7, $196,000 
of the "Flippin Compromise Bonds" had been cancelled and 
retired, leaving still outstanding $551,000, all bearing six per 
cent interest. Later, "the refunding bonds to redeem the 
Flippin Compromise Bonds were sold for $1,025.70 each, so 
that applying the premium received on the bonds it only 
became necessary to issue $537,000 of these bonds, this reduc- 
ing the principal of the indebtedness $14,000. These new bonds 
mature in 1939 and bear only 4i/^ per cent interest, whereas 
the Flippin bonds bore six per cent." 

It was shown that the indebtedness of the city was then 
one-thirteenth of the taxable values, while in 1879 it had been 
one-third. 

The Police Department had m 1908 a force of 146, with 
George T. 'Haver, chief. Chief 'Haver gave an excellent 
report of the work done in his department during 1907, show- 
ing that the department had gradually been increased, but he 
complained that the force was still far from being numerically 
sufficient. He stated that Memphis, on account of her geographi- 
cal position, is a difficult city to patrol and protect, as crim- 
inals and fugitives from Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and 
Alabama come here or often get into mischief here while 
enroute to other cities. To quote from Chief 'Haver: "Mem- 
phis is along the great highway of travel between the North 
and South, also the East and West, and with its eleven railroads 
and water transportation, navigable all the year, it presents 
an attraction to thieves to commit depredations not possessed 
by any other city, and the means for criminals to escape on 
account of its proximity to other states are unsurpassed." 

The amount of stolen property recovered that year by the 
fourteen detectives was $22,705.60 and these "plain clothes 
men" captured many noted criminals in Memphis. One of the 
duties of the detectives is to protect the traveling public at 
railroad stations day and night. The chief praised Miss Mary 
E. Roark's work and said: "She has ever proved equal to 
the exigencies of the occasion, no matter if the distressed was a 
reputable woman or one of the unfortunates of the world." 

The department at that- time had forty police signal boxes. 



266 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

which had proved all that had been argued for them when the 
council had been importuned to get them. The Gamewell 
system had been adopted by Memphis, built at a cost of $10,000, 
and the forty boxes in operation enabled policemen in all 
twenty-two wards of the city to keep in touch with one another. 

Of the police station building, Chief 'Haver said : ' ' Cen- 
tral Station still remains the nightmare of the department. Its 
dangerous condition, together with its lack of facility to prop- 
erly shelter officers and men, and also those arrested, continues 
to deserve the severe criticisms that grand juries for teh past 
ten years have never failed to call public attention to, both to 
its insanitary surroundings and insecurity." 

Owing to the crowded condition of the uptown district, 
the properly policing that portion of the city, as well as 
policing parks and other places of amusement, caused parts of 
the city to be neglected, and the Chief said that some people, 
ever ready to criticise the police service, do not take into con- 
sideration, or perhaps do not know, how difficult it is to give 
proper police protection to a large city, with all of its various 
demands, without sufficient men to do the work. 

Chief 'Haver also thought that everything should be done 
to raise the standard of the policemen themselves, such as 
paying them good salaries and enabling them to look forward, 
after years of faithful service, to pensions for their old age 
or disability. 

The Board of Health used quite an overdraft on their 
funds during the year 1908, but they did much toward clean- 
ing up the city and worked hand in hand with the Council in 
getting the city as a whole in good condition. Doctor Ray- 
mond was president of the board at that time, and he was an 
earnest worker. 

Among improvements that he and his assistants accom- 
plished was the removal of garbage boxes from streets and 
putting them in alleys and back-yards, and having the wooden 
ones, as they wore out, substituted by galvanized iron cans. 
The removal of these boxes took from the streets many unsight- 
ly nuisances. Alleys received careful inspection and those up 
town, especially, were thoroughly cleaned and ordered kept 



.History of Memphis, Tennessee. 267 

so. Some of the street workmen were appointed to this special 
work and were called the "alley gang." This gang removed 
during 1907 25,000 cartloads of dirt of various sorts. 

Food inspection had become strict and the city attorney, 
Mr. Thos. II. Jackson, said that enforcing the laws in regard 
to milk and other pure food restrictions took much of the 
time of himself and his assistants. 

In 1906 the city authorities decided that the "tunnel" 
system of obtaining water for the city supply was not the best 
method. It was impossible to abandon the system, as the city 
plant, with its tunnels and lifts was too extensive for this, but 
all new works were to be put in according to more advanced 
methods. In 1906 three air-compressors and pumps were put in 
in New South Memphis, and in January, 1907, a new "air-lift" 
plant was erected at the corner of Central and Tanglewood 
Avenues. It consisted "of five 150-horsepower boilers, five 
air compressors with a capacity of 500 cubic feet free air per 
minute each and five 1,000,000-gallon pumps. The maximum 
capacity of this plant is about 7,500,000 gallons daily, with a 
normal capacity of 5,000,000 gallons." Six wells were con- 
nected with this plant and all were pronounced good. 

The water commissioners, comprising Messrs. Wirt J. Wills, 
James S. Davant and Robert E. Lee, were of opinion that this 
new water system solved the water problem for Memphis. 

Besides this new work, improvements had been made in 
other ways, all the property of the Department kept in 
thorough repair, and the water pumped was increased 1,000,000 
gallons per day, making the daily pumpage 14,000,000, all of 
which the commission claimed made "1907 the banner year for 
the Department." 

The reduction in rates since the city bought the water 
plant had been 34 per cent and yet, by 1907 the commissioners 
declared that the revenue of the Department had increased 
until it was equal to what it had been under private owner- 
ship. The supply continued in its purity and chemists of 
America and Germany pronounced it the best public water in 
the United States. The commissioners gave the value of the 
water plant to be $6,000,000. 



268 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Much work had been accomplished on streets and bridges 
and sewers had been greatly extended. City Engineer J. H, 
Weatherford complained that the supervision of the city gov- 
ernment over new subdivisions had not been enforced as to 
width and location of streets. In closing his report he advised: 
"As it is probable that the city limits will be again extended 
in the near future I would respectfully recommend that some 
legislation be secured to the end that the city may have some 
positive control of the location and width of streets opened 
for public use." 

The City Hospital had an excellent report for the year 
1907 and although still not self-sustaining, was steadily climb- 
ing to that point. The amount received for pay-patients dur- 
ing the year was $56,512.50, and the year's expenses had 
amounted to .$81,417.42. Doctors and nurses had been added 
to the service of the hospital, and of these the superintendent, 
Mr. John H. Kibler, said : "1 have nothing but praise for the 
staff-physicians, interns and co-laborers in the care of the sick 
and injured." 

The number of patients received during the year were 
2,874 and those treated numbered 3,918. Of this number 3,624 
were cured. The greatest number of patients had been, con- 
trary to former reports, from Memphis, these numbering 2,009, 
the remaining 864 being from Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas 
and other states. 

Miss Nell A. Peeler, superintendent of nurses, reported 
good work from the graduate and pupil nurses, ending: "I 
desire to speak in the highest praise of our Training School 
Faculty and the entire staff, for their painstaking and untiring 
instructions, both at the bedside and in the class room. This 
enables us to be successful in giving to the public nurses who 
are competent and thorough." 

The real estate and buildings owned by the city of Mem- 
phis in 1907, amounted to $5,733,800.00. 

Despite any and all drawbacks, Mr. Malone said: "We 
have every reason to be encouraged for the future and should 
enter upon the duties of the current year [1908] Avith renewed 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 269 

energy and hope," and in his next report he declared: "The 
year 1908 opened under auspicious circumstances." 

During 1908 the Mayor proposed that the city limits be 
extended, both to raise the census of 1910 and from a sanitary 
and police standpoint, as the immediate suburbs had become 
very thickly settled, all these inhabitants being strictly Mem- 
phis people, making their living in the city, having fire pro- 
tection without paying city taxes, and enjoying other advan- 
tages the city gives. 

The front-foot assessment law was enforced in Memphis 
this year and brought about much complaint, as any new form 
of taxation always arouses a people, no matter how much good 
the tax might do the city. This law provided that abutting own- 
ers of property should pay two-thirds of the expense of street im- 
provement work done in front of their property, and sixty per 
cent of the owners on any street could petition for the improve- 
ment of their street. In this last case the mayor thought the city 
should be given the initiative of judging which streets needed 
attention first. The city, in addition to its one-third of the 
entire expense of work under this law was "liable for certifi- 
cates of indebtedness used to cover the cost of the other two- 
thirds falling on the property holder. In addition to this it 
is ruled by our legal department that in case it becomes neces- 
sary to relay water-pipes or to lay down sewers in advance of 
a permanent improvement on the street, that the city must pay 
the entire cost thereof, and no part thereof is chargeable to 
the property owner. It will thus be seen that as compared 
with other cities an undue portion of the cost of improvements 
must fall on the city." 

So long as the Flippin Bonds were current, Memphis could 
not issue any liability bonds, but these being refunded in 1908, 
the city had the power to issue general liability bonds, the first 
time she had enjoyed that privilege for forty years. During 
this period of two score years all improvements had been made 
by direct taxation. "In the meantime the city was allowed in 
all these years to collect in addition privilege taxes, and the 



270 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Legislature likewise levied special taxes, such as for Parks, 
Cossitt Library, North Memphis Levee, etc."* 

Mr. Malone urged the issuance of bonds for city improve- 
ments and said in defense of the act : 

"We have gone through war, pestilence and financial 
panic ; in short, we have borne the heat and burden of the day, 
and have now in the rough a city of the most flattering possi- 
bilities of any in this broad land, and why should we not make 
it a finished city? 

"We certainly will hand it over to the generation that 
succeeds us as a valuable asset, and surely our successors can 
care for the small liability with such a splendid inheritance. 

"There will be opposition to the issue of any bonds. We 
have the pessimist and doubter always with us. There are men 
still living who violently opposed sewering the city, although 
it was the only redemption of the city from pestilence. Like- 
wise the purchase of our present water system, so superbly 
successful and an absolute necessity for our health, was vigor- 
ously opposed, and the same pessimists held up their hands in 
horror when it was proposed to purchase our magnificent large 
parks, which have been so well brought into public use as to 
meet universal approval." 

Granolith sidewalks grew in favor and they, with all the 
other civic improvements going forward certainly benefitted 
Memphis so materially that one of the inhabitants of early days 
coming back to visit her many mudless streets and sidewalks 
would have marveled indeed, and might have thought that an 
earthquake had occurred and left the city a rocky foundation 
instead of the bottomless clay and mud of his own time. 

In 1908 Chief 'Haver was succeeded in office by that 
faithful servant who had served Memphis so long as an officer 
of the peace. Chief W. C. Davis. In a report given in June, 
1909, this ever just man said : 

"In presenting the statistical figures, I wish to give credit 
to ex-Chief of Police, George T. 'Haver, who as head of the 
department all during the year 1908, is entitled to all praise for 

♦From speech of Mayor Malone, given to Business Men's Club in 
November, 1908. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 271 

the efficiency shown and for the discipline of the department 
during the year past. He resigned last February, after an 
honorable career as a police officer of the city extending over 
a period of thirty-two years." 

By this time Memphis contained twenty-two square miles 
and had become a very difficult and expensive problem for her 
city fathers to manage. Her size and importance entitled her 
to first-class advantages of all kinds and her people wanted 
her to have them. Chief Davis said: 

"Citizens generally are fast realizing that municipalities 
are costly luxuries, when being conducted on lines of latest 
improved methods in all branches of government, and there is 
no reason why Memphis should not compare favorably with 
other metropolitan cities, both as to the strength of its police 
force and its most modern equipments." 

The pension so long asked for policemen and firemen was 
given in 1909 by an act of the Legislature in which: 

"The city of Memphis is hereby empowered to create a 
fund for the purpose of pensioning members of the police and 
fire departments of the city, and to compensate members of 
said departments or their families in case they are killed or 
injured in the discharge of their duties as members of the 
said department." 

Section 3, of this Act provided "That the city shall have 
power in cases where any member of said departments shall 
have been injured, in the discharge of his duty, to make pro- 
vision for his compensation." 

Section 4, "That the city have power in cases where any 
member of said departments shall have been killed, in the dis- 
charge of his duty, to make provision for the compensation of 
his family." 

Section 6, "That the city shall levy a special tax of not 
more than one cent on the $100 of taxable property for the 
purpose of creating a fund with which to meet the expenses and 
carry out the purposes of this Act." 

Mr. Jackson, the City Attorney, had much work during 
1908 and 1909 straightening city law affairs and trying to keep 



272 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

them straight. There were many law-suits to handle and of his 
assistants in the work he said, in his report to the Mayor and 
Council : 

' ' In speaking of these matters I desire to call the attention of 
your honorable body to the fact that Mr. Marion G. Evans and 
Mr. James L. McRee, my assistants, have done more than their 
share of the work and labor in the trial and disposition of the 
matters set forth in this report. The industry and ability of 
these two gentlemen has made it possible for this department to 
handle the immense amount of work entailed upon it." 

Mr. Jackson gives some idea of his work in the closing 
paragraph of his report, as follows : 

"I have been constantly called upon for advice and services 
by the various departments of the city government. Among 
the more important of these matters have been the preparation 
of the Union Depot ordinance, which required the greatest care 
and very laborious work. I have also been called upon to look 
into the extents and limits of the Southern Railway's right 
of way through the City of Memphis, and the right which that 
railroad had to extend the limits of its right of way. I have 
also been called upon to examine the authorities and advise the 
city with reference to its right to require the railroad com- 
panies to rebuild the Madison Street bridge. I have been called 
on to draw contracts and ordinances at various times. The 
Engineering Department, the City Judge, the License Inspector, 
the Building Inspector and the City Register have called upon 
us for opinions and advice at various times." 

Reverting to the water department, its largest well was 
dug in 1908, on Central Avenue. The pipe leading to this new 
water supply measured thirteen inches, inside diameter, and 
the yield from the well was 2,500,000 gallons per day. There 
were also laid during this year twelve miles of mains, giving 
191 miles in the entire water system. 

The growth of this department under municipal owner- 
ship and management continued favorable and never ceased 
to be a satisfactory arrangement. The secretary of the water 
department, Mr. Sanford Morison, said that "Notwithstanding 
the various reductions in rates, gross earnings for 1904 were 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 273 

$378,340.04. For the year 1908 the gross earnings were 
$383,881.40." 

Mr. Morison's general balance sheet showed the property 
in 1908 to be worth $3,080,446.87. 

During the term of the Legislature of 1909 numerous bills 
concerning Memphis were passed, some of these being of vital 
importance to the city. One of these, passed February 27, and 
approved March 6, changed the limits of the city, as follows : 

"Beginning on the line of midstream of the Mississippi 

River at a point where the south line of the Speedway is laid 

off immediately east of Moore Avenue if extended west would 

intersect said midstream line, and running thence east with 

the south line of the said Speedway (said Speedway being 

known here as 'Kerr Avenue') to the southeast corner of said 

Speedway and Victor Avenue ; thence east with the south line 

of said Speedway to a point where it turns north; thence 

north to the southeast intersection of said Speedway and 

Kerr Avenue ; thence east with the south line of Kerr Avenue 

to the northeast corner of Cavalry Cemetery; thence north to 

the south line of the Speedway (known here as 'Austin Avenue') 

thence east with the south line of the Speedway to the southeast 

corner of said Speedway and Locke Avenue; thence due east 

to the east line of Trezevant Avenue ; thence north to the east 

line of Trezevant Avenue to the south line of the Speedway; 

thence east with the south line of the Speedway to the east line 

of the Speedway ; thence north following the east line of the 

said Speedway (said Speedway being known as 'Trezevant 

Avenue'), to the northeast corner of Trezevant and Summer 

Avenue ; thence north with the east line of Trezevant Avenue 

to the old Raleigh Road (also known as 'Jackson Avenue') ; 

thence west with the north line of the old Raleigh Road or 

Jackson Avenue to a point where it intersects the west line 

of Springdale Avenue; thence north with the west line of 

Springdale Avenue to the northwest intersection of the said 

Springdale Avenue and the right of way of the Louisville and 

Nashville Railroad; thence west to the northeast corner of the 

present city limits; thence westwardly on the north line of the 

present city limits (being the south line of Volentine Avenue) 



274 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

to a point where the west line of Jones Avenue if projected 
south would intersect said north line of present city limits; 
thence north to the northwest intersection of Jones Avenue and 
the New Raleigh Road ; thence west on a direct line to the 
southwest corner of Maple and Chestnut Streets; thence west 
with the south line of Maple Street to the southeast corner of 
Maple Street and Thomas Street; thence west on a direct line 
to midstream of Wolf River ; thence southwardly with the 
meanderings of the midstream line of Wolf River and Mani- 
gault Canal to the line of midstream of the Mississippi River; 
thence southwardly with the meanderings of the midstream 
line of the Mississippi River to the point of beginning." 

The last year of the Malone administration saw quite as 
much accomplished as the previous year and some of the work 
progressed faster than formerly. The government was con- 
ducted on a cash basis which, Mr. Malone said, was ''the only 
true policy." Still, overdrafts were drawn and owed in the 
different departments, the Engineering Department alone, 
owing, by 1909, an overcheck of nearly $500,000. 

Among other improvements for streets attention was 
turned to getting rid of dust. Sprinkling obviated much of 
this evil but on warm days the water soon soaked into the 
streets or evaporated and on driveways much traveled, dust 
could not be kept down long even by heavy sprinkling. Crude 
oils had been tried to some extent by a hand system and had been 
partly successful, but raw oils and tar were found to be hurt- 
ful to the streets. A distilled tar, m^de from bituminous coal, 
had proved so satisfactory in other places that Memphis decided 
to use it and an automatic tar-spraying machine was purchased 
by the city, on Mr. Malone 's recommendation and proved suc- 
cessful and economical when it arrived in 1910. 

The rate of taxes was fixed for 1909 at $1.76. The taxable 
property in Memphis at that time was valued at $84,058,431.46, 
an increase of $43,740,221.46 since 1900.* 

The debts of the city at this time, not backed by property 
subject to sale, amounted to $3,195,000. 

In 1908 a woman sanitary inspector had been appointed by 

*Mr. Malone's Message. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 275 

the Fire and Police Commissioners and by the end of 1909 her 
report showed that she had filled a real need. Among other 
accomplishments this active woman investigated the condi- 
tion of factories and stores where women were employed and 
remedied many evils found thereby, some of these conditions 
having been almost unbelievable. Many Memphis employers, 
like those of other parts of the world, grow in prosperity with- 
out considering the comfort or convenience of those who are 
assisting in their business growth, unless forced to do so. 
Mayors and other city officials have it in their power to rem- 
edy many of these evils and Memphis employees as well as the 
public at large have much cause for gratitude, in this respect, 
to the late mayors and commissioners of the city. 

This inspector also discovered numerous unsanitary kitch- 
ens and other places not so apt to be discovered by men, which 
were ordered cleaned and kept so. She also aided much in 
keeping the pure food laws enforced. 

The chief sanitary inspector was changed from a physi- 
cian who, on account of his practice, could give only limited 
time to city duties, to a layman who could give all of his time 
to the work and supervision of the work of those under him. 

For many years subways for street-cars and other vehicles 
of travel had been advocated, as accidents often occurred 
where these crossed railroad tracks. Two unsuccessful ordin- 
ances had been passed for constructing subways, but on Decem- 
ber 24, 1909, an ordinance was passed which provided for the 
building of eleven subways in Memphis, the bulk of the cost to 
be borne by the railroads, including incidental damages. As 
the cost of these constructions amounts to millions of dollars, 
the advantages to Memphis from a financial point of view, in 
addition to lessening danger to an untellable degree, is very 
great. 

These new subways were to be a continuation of a system 
already begun, two having been built and others ordered. 

It was a boast of the Malone administration that they left 
$240,000 in bank for their successors and that during the period 
of their supervision there had been no misappropriations ; also 
that the city books had at all times been open to inspection. 



276 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

One achievement of Mr. Malone's which was not required 
by his official duties, but that took much time and trouble, was 
the beginning of a collection of portraits of the mayors of 
Memphis. 

After much inquiry, request, correspondence, etc., four- 
teen portraits were secured, painted and placed in the city hall 
in the courthouse. On December 12, 1909, there was an article 
in the Commercial Appeal, giving cuts of these portraits and 
a short sketch of each mayor represented. On December 28 
of that year, Senator Turley presented the portraits to the city 
in a most excellent address. 

These portraits include: Marcus B. Winchester, Edwin 
Hickman, Addison H. Douglass, John Johnson, John R. Flippin, 
John Overton, W. D. Bethel, Isaac Rawlings, Gardner B. Locke, 
John Park, John Loague, D. T. Porter, David P. Hadden, W. 
L. Clapp. 

Another portrait has since been added, that of Seth Wheat- 
ley, and one of Mr. Malone has been painted but not yet pre- 
sented to the city. 

It is well for the city to revere those who have helped in 
her building and as mayors have much to do with this devel- 
opment, it seems a justifiable tribute to have them so honored. 
Would that we might have all our benefactors, men and women, 
kept before succeeding generations. 



7^ 



CHAPTER XIII 



Commission Form of Government Established. Provisions of 
the Act. Election of E. H. Crump, as Mayor. Williams 
Vigorously Contests the Election of Crump. Contest With- 
drawn. Reduction of Tax Rate. Extension of Sewer 
System to Annexed Territory. Mounted Police Station. 
Vast Construction of New Streets. The City Greatly 
Beautified. Prohibition in Memphis. Curious Result of 
the Law. Juvenile Court Established. Splendid Work 
Among Children. Mounted Police Force. Modern Fire 
Equipment. Stupendous Municipal Improvements. 
Increase of Bond Issues. Purchase of Tri-State Fair 
Grounds. Crump Reelected. Tremendous Flood of Mis- 
sissippi River. Part of City Overflowed. Water System 
Contaminated. 



AN ACT of fifty-three sections, passed April 24, and 
approved April 27, amended the charter so as to make 
several changes in the city government. In Section 2, 
of this Act the name of the "Board of Fire and Police Com- 
missioners" was changed to the "Board of Commissioners of 
the City of Memphis." This new board of Commissioners was 
to consist of five members, one of these the Mayor. 

To quote from Section 1 of this Act : 

"The first Board hereunder shall consist of the four mem- 
bers of the present Legislative Council of the City of Memphis, 
whose terms expire in November, 1911, and of a Mayor, who 
shall be elected by the people of the city of Memphis on the 
first Thursday after the first Monday in November, 1909. 
The qualifications of said Mayor and of the members of said 
Board of Commissioners shall be those now required by law 
for the members of the present Legislative Council, and the 
Mayor shall have the additional qualifications now provided 
by law for said office; provided, however, that no person shall 



278 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

be ineligible to said office because of having heretofore held 
said office." 

Section 3 provided, "That the said Board of Commissioners 
shall have and exercise all the powers and discharge all the 
duties now vested in and imposed upon the present Board of 
Fire and Police Commissioners, the present Board of Public 
Works, and the Present Legislative Council, together with such 
other powers and duties as are hereinafter prescribed." 

Section 4: "The Board of Public Works is hereby abol- 
ished, and the powers and duties now vested in and imposed 
upon said Board and the several members thereof by law are 
hereby vested in and imposed upon the said Board of Com- 
missioners and the several members thereof." 

The Board of Health management was thus changed in 
Section 5: "The Board of Health as at present constituted is 
hereby abolished, and in lieu thereof is established a subordin- 
ate department to be known as the 'Health Department,' to be 
under the supervision and control of the Department of Public 
Affairs which said department shall perform the duties and 
functions heretofore performed by the Board of Health." 

Section 7, fixed the salary of the Mayor at $6,000 per 
annum and that of the other members of the Board at $3,000 
and further provided that "No member of said Board of Com- 
missioners shall, directly or indirectly, receive any other or 
greater compensation than that just provided." 

Section 9 provided "That at the first meeting of the said 
Board of Commissioners or at some meeting within thirty 
days thereafter there shall be elected by said Board the follow- 
ing officers, whose terms of office and whose annual compensa- 
tion shall be as herein indicated, as follows : 

"City Attorney, two years, $3,600; City Judge, two years, 
$2,500 ; City Engineer, two years, $3,000 ; City Clerk, two years, 
$3,000 ; Chief of Police, one year, $2,700 ; Chief of Fire Depart- 
ment, one year, $2,700 ; City Paymaster, two years, $2,000 ; City 
Chemist, one year, $2,400; Superintendent of Health Depart- 
ment, two years, $3,000 ; Clerk of City Court, one year, $1,800 ; 
City Plumbing Inspector, one year, $1,500 ; City Meat Inspector, 
one year, $1,500; City Boiler Inspector, one year, $1,680; Col- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 279 

lector of License and Privilege Taxes, one year, $1,500; Wharf - 
master, one year, $1,500 ; Marketmaster, one year, $1,200 ; City 
Veterinary Surgeon, one year, $1,200; Gas and Electric Light 
Inspector, one year, $1,500; City Harnessmaker, one year, 
$1,200 ; Inspector of Weights and Measures, one year, $1,800 ; 
Superintendent of City Hospital, one year, $1,500 ; Electric 
Inspector, one year, $2,000; Building Inspector, one year, 
$2,500." 

In case of varied opinions as to departmental duties. Sec- 
tion 16 of this Act provided "That whenever a difference of 
opinion shall arise as to what department embraces a particu- 
lar work or matter, either because the same is not herein speci- 
ally provided for or because of the difference of opinion as 
to the proper construction of the foregoing sections, the ques- 
tion shall be determined by the Board of Commissioners in 
regular session, and their conclusion shall be final and bind- 
ing." 

Memphis was authorized by this Legislature of 1909 to 
issue bonds for a police station and engine house and a ' ' Police 
Station Building Commission," was also appointed, consisting 
of Messrs. Dwight M. Armstrong, Henry E. Craft and Dave 
Halle, to serve "until the police station building * * * * shall 
have been completed and turned over to the city of Memphis." 
This also included the Engine House. 

I\Ir. Malone was succeeded in office January 1, 1910, by 
E. H. Crump, who was elected under the Commission form of 
Government, making him mayor and commissioner of Public 
Affairs and Health. Mayor Crump defeated J. J. Williams. 

The old controversy as to the validity of this form of gov- 
ernment arose and kept the new administration much vexed 
but the new commissioners started into their work vigorously, 
notwithstanding, and continued to accomplish city improve- 
ments begun in the last administration and to introduce new 
ones. Their right to transact business was denied by their 
opponents and everything that depended upon the legality of 
the charter was attacked until late in June, when the Supreme 
Court sustained the charter and decided other cases in favor 
of the Commission form of Government. 



280 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

It was charged that the election itself had been fraudu- 
lent, which accusation brewed and simmered until October, 

1910, when the long complicated case of Crump vs. Williams 
was brought in Judge J. P. Young's First Division of the 
Circuit Court. Technicalities became so involved that the 
attorneys had much ado to untangle the web and +o present 
the ease in proper form before the court. 

In order to settle the question of the votes beyond a doubt, 
Judge Young ordered a recount of all the ballots and an inves- 
tigation of the names of the voters in all the questioned wards, 
a tedious operation that was much complained of but which 
settled the controversy, bringing the wrangling to an undis- 
puted end. The recount showed that Mr. Crump was elected 
mayor by an increased majority. Mr. Williams gracefully 
withdrew his contest. 

After this legal controversy was over the new administra- 
tion began work vehemently on municipal affairs and the 
improvement of the city sprang forward with a bound. 

Some of the things accomplished in the years 1910 and 

1911, were: collection in the fee-earning departments of more 
money than had been previously collected ; reduction of taxes 
to $1.59; collection of the full amount of turnpike dues from 
the County Court, amounting to $22,500 ; the removal of many 
unsightly shacks, which were replaced by more modern and 
sanitary buildings ; extension of the sewer system to the terri- 
tory annexed in 1909 ; creation of the office of purchasing agent 
for the city, whose duty it is to buy all city necessities after 
bids have been taken, thus saving money for the city ; erecting 
a mounted police station on Barksdale Avenue ; remodeling the 
old section of the City Hospital and building another wing ; con- 
structing 30.6 miles of streets and paving 9.60 miles under 
the front-foot assessment plan; and succeeding in securing 
from banks 3^ per cent interest on city money, on deposit.* 

Municipal ownership of the Light plant has been agitated 
and continues to be discussed as a great benefit to the city, the 
success of water ownership being held up as an example. Much 

♦From statements in a booklet entitled "One Year Eight Months 
under Commission Form of Government." 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 281 

has also been said about reducing telephone rates so that all 
citizens may have them and all patrons enjoy better service. 

The present administration believe they have solved the 
intricate city-bookkeeping problem, and the mayor says that 
"under Ennis Douglass, city clerk, and Albert D. Perkins, book- 
keeper," the system "will compare favorably with that used 
in any big wholesale house in the country." 

Mayor Crump, in proof of the fact that he thinks first 
of the city's good in what he does, states that he has not 
ridden on a railroad pass during his connection with the city 
government, nor accepted free favors from any corporation, 
man or set of men ; that he has refrained from associating 
himself with any concern that might have business dealings 
with the city, and that, despite false charges, neither he nor 
any member of the administration has been guilty of any sort 
of graft. 

During this administration much work has been done on 
the subways and great is the benefit accrued and yet to be 
realized from them. 

The conduit system of wires has also been extended and 
by degrees unsightly poles and criss-cross wires are being lost 
from view. The poles that must remain are painted and made 
as pleasing to the eye as possible. Many ugly light-posts have 
been removed and symmetrical, pleasing ones put in their 
places. Everything that adds to the beauty of the city is edu- 
cational to its people and, with improving aesthetic taste, comes 
a refining of the whole public nature. Through physical beauty 
our people may come to a moral beauty worthy of a municipali- 
ty striving to climb the hill of progress. The mayor, city com- 
missioners and public-minded citizens of Memphis have spent 
thought, time and money in trying to beautify her precincts 
and the beneficiaries feel grateful as they drive or walk through 
the beautiful streets on clean, smooth roadways or grass-bor- 
dered walks; stroll or rest in the splendid parks or study 
nature in the mid places of some of them; enjoy the luxury 
of city benefits, given in artistic form, and behold buildings 
and sculpture worthy a larger and older city than ours. 

Inasmuch as lawlessness and trouble with saloons and 



282 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

gamblers have been chronicled at intervals through this history, 
it is but fair to mention the present condition of affairs, as it 
presents a curious phase of the latest attempt at statewide 
prohibition. When the prohibition law went into effect in Ten- 
nessee in 1911, Memphis saloon-keepers, supposing that the 
law passed by the Legislature of the State must be a final 
dictum, at least until some legislative act of the future should 
repeal it, were ready to leave the city. Many had already left 
and some of these men had put their capital into other kinds 
of business. For a time it looked as if saloons and gambling 
were to be evils of the past in Memphis and it was rare that a 
drunken man was to be seen. Even some people who did not 
approve of the principle of prohibition declared it good to see 
the places closed where youth was so often tempted. But it 
was whispered, then spoken aloud, that this law was not a 
popular law and that therefore the saloon-keepers should not 
be forced to obey it. Many business men openly asserted these 
views and the press took up the cry. Saloons were reopened 
surreptitiously at first, but seeing that no attempt was made to 
close them their proprietors became bolder and by degrees 
opened wide the doors that the law said must be closed. Others 
followed the example of the leaders and soon the city was as 
"wide open" as to saloons, as it had ever been. Whichever 
theory is correct as to the merits of the prohibition law, open 
defiance of law, in whatever way that defiance may be prac- 
ticed, is most prejudicial to a city and gives her citizens a grow- 
ing contempt for law in general. 

Memphis has now been nearly a century fighting for and 
against the moral part of her development and one can but 
wonder at the final outcome. 

One institution has come into being under Mr. Crump's 
administration that is calculated to perform a work of untold 
good and to counteract many evil influences that surround 
young boys and girls in unfortunate environments, and that is 
the Juvenile Court. 

Much is already known of the workings of the Juvenile 
court from Judge Lindsey and other great souls who have 
wrought so much benefit to humanity by its force and it is 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 283 

good for Memphians to know that we have here more than a 
nucleus of a most excellently conducted court for the young. 
The need of such a safe-guard has been felt in Memphis for a 
great many years and in 1905 the first enactment was passed by 
the state providing for it. The good of that proceeding, how- 
ever, stopped with the enactment itself, as no advantage was 
taken of its privilege to establish such a court. 

In 1907 this Act was amended so that only counties con- 
taining 100,000 or more inhabitants could establish such courts, 
jurisdiction being conferred upon all city courts of such 
counties. Still no juvenile court became part of the Memphis 
city government and child "criminals" were tried in police 
courts or committed by judges to an Industrial school or other 
place of confinement. In 1909 the law was again amended, 
giving juvenile courts to counties of 150,000 or more inhabi- 
tants, and this amended act made it compulsory that all 
children under sixteen years of age be tried for misconduct only 
by an officer given the authority of a juvenile judge. 

Memphis still hesitated and did not put into form a court 
for the betterment of her children, but interest had been 
aroused in the subject and it had obtained numerous friends. 

Ten days after Mr. Crump entered upon his duties as 

Z' mayor, the Juvenile Court of Memphis was established under 

his authority, with Judge Kelly on the bench. Judge Kelly 

was interested in his young charges from the beginning and 

the court was soon accomplishing much good. 

The first Advisory Board consisted of Mrs. T. H. Scruggs, 
chairman, Mrs. Benjamin West, secretary, and Mr. George 
W. Pease. These members held office for one year and helped 
many boys and girls during their term of service. 

The first probation officers were Messrs. "William Eifler, 
H. H. Chamberlain and R. L. Christy. These officers were 
detailed from the police department and all proved excellent 
factors in the new work, contrary to the prediction of some 
who said that men from the police force could never serve 
efficiently in juvenile court work. 

In 1911 the Juvenile Court Act was again amended and 



284 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

this time was quite fully treated, having become an important 
part of the law's business. 

All delinquent and dependent children up to the age of 
sixteen years are taken in charge by this court. A delinquent 
child is one "who violates any law of the state or any city 
or town ordinance, or who is incorrigible, or is a persistent 
truant from school, or who associates with criminals or reputed 
criminals or vicious or immoral person, or who is growing up 
in idleness or crime, or who frequents, visits or is found in 
any disorderly house, bawdy house or house of ill fame * * * * 
or in any saloon, barroom or drinking shop or place. * * * * 
or who patronizes, frequents, visits or is found in any gaming 
house * * * * or who wanders about the streets in the night time 
without being on any lawful business or occupation, or who 
habitually wanders about any railroad yards or tracks or 
climbs on moving trains * * * * or who habitually uses, vile, 
obscene, vulgar, profane or indecent language,"* etc. 

A dependent child is "any child who, for any reason, is 
destitute or homeless or abandoned or dependent upon the public 
for support, or has not proper parental care or guardianship or 
who is found begging or receiving or gathering alms * * * * or 
who is found living in any saloon, disorderly house * * * * or 
with any vicious or disreputable person, or whose home, by 
reason of neglect, cruelty, drunkenness, or depravity on the part 
of its parents, guardian or other person in whose care it may 
be, is an unfit place for such a child, and any child under the 
age of fourteen (14) years who is found begging, peddling or 
selling any article or singing or playing any musical instrument 
upon the streets * * * * or who is used in aid of any person so 
doing. ' '* 

Any reputable resident in the city or county, having 
knowledge of a delinquent or dependent child, may notify the 
Clerk of the Juvenile Court, filing with him a petition setting 
forth the facts of the case. 

It is the duty of the clerk, when any child is to be brought 
before the court, to notify a probation officer, whose duty it 
then becomes to investigate the case, and "to be present in 

•Public Acts of 1911. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 285 

court to represent the interest of the child when the case is 
heard, to furnish such information and assistance as the court 
may require, and to take charge of any child before or after 
the trial, as may be directed by the court. ' ' 

When a child is found by this court to be either delin- 
quent or dependent, ''the court may make an order committing 
the child to the care of some suitable state institution or to 
the care of some reputable citizen of good moral character, or 
to the care of some institution provided by law, or to the care 
of some suitable association willing to receive it, embracing 
in its objects the purposes of caring for or of obtaining homes 
for dependent or delinquent children." The city judge is 
required to "hold his court for the trial of juvenile offenders in 
a separate place and at a separate time from the courts for 
the trial of other offenders." 

There are many other details to this Act but these quoted 
give a general idea of the scope of the work of the Juvenile 

Court. 

In 1911 this court was reorganized in Memphis and after 
the reorganization Mayor Crump appointed Mr. Thomas B. 
King, chairman, Mrs. Benjamin "West, secretary and Mr. G. W. 
Pease, the other member of the Board. In August of 1911 
Judge Kelly was succeeded on the bench by Judge William J. 
Bacon. 

The work went bravely on. Judge Bacon giving much time 
and thought to judging the young people who came under his 
direction here, and gaining many confidences from the unma- 
tured young beings who only needed stimulant of the right 
sort and encouragement to start them on the road to useful 
man or womanhood. 

In the fall of 1910, a colored department of the Juvenile 
Court was started and the detention home taken in charge by 
Julia Hooks, a woman who> has been working for the better- 
ment of her race for over forty years. Her husband, Charlie 
Hooks, was made probation officer. 

During 1911 Charlie and Julia Hooks had in their charge 
288 colored children, all detained from two to ten days. These 
children had been dependents, or guilty of offenses from petty 



286 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

larceny to murder. Twenty-nine of them were babies and 
homes were found for all the twenty -nine. Julia said that colored 
people love children and it is never difficult to find homes for 
the foundlings. One six-year old had been rescued from an 
uncle who used the boy to climb into windows and steal goods, 
many of which were taken in the day time and concealed in a 
false bottom to the wagon in which the uncle hauled wood. 

So far in this year over 180 colored children have been 
cared for in this department of the Juvenile Court. 

Surely no work of any INIemphis administration has been 
of so great importance as this of rescuing the children. If more 
money were spent on child-work now, less would be spent on 
prisons and criminal proceedings in the future. We build 
many improvements for future generations to enjoy and think 
little of the generations themselves. The greatest human work 
is building human character and strengthening the moral fiber 
of the race. 

Returning to older municipal affairs, Memphis now has a 
most excellent police force, numbering 200 patrolmen, mounted 
police and detectives, with the chief and other officers. The 
Memphis force makes a splendid appearance when in drill and 
Major Kit Deffry is employed to drill the men according to 
military tactics. 

The mounted force also receive careful drilling and these 
men themselves are selected for their good forms, intelligence 
and good character. They do credit to their drill-master, their 
city and their calling. These officers of the peace have regular 
cavalry drilling from Sergeant W. Lee, a United States cavalry 
man, and in case of riots or other uprisings ' they and the 
patrolmen could act as a unit of soldiers. 

The fire department is also "up-to-date" and that means 
much in our age of invention and convenience. The horses of 
this department are magnificent specimens but they are greatly 
reduced in numbers by the use of motor power. The engines 
are works of skill, beauty and strength, as is all the other appa- 
ratus, and the engine-houses do credit to their builders. The 
latest of these is a beautiful white marble-front building next 
to the elegant new police-station already referred to. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 287 

The aerial ladders and other modern equipments would be 
a marvel to the aldermen of by-gone years who worked so hard 
to get the "Little Vigor" in order to help Memphis people save 
their property. 

This department is equipped with the Gamewell system 
of fire alarms and is of course in touch with all the private 
telephones in the city. It also has access to 225 miles of water 
mains, with nearly 1,500 hydrants and fifty storage cisterns, 
ranging from 17,500 to 70,000 gallons. 

Engineering work of the past two years has been vast. 
Since the introduction of tar macadam for streets in 1910, it 
has proved successful and so has been used a great deal ; also 
creosoted wooden blocks which are placed over a concrete 
foundation, have proved satisfactory street material. Many 
of the new neighborhoods taken into the corporation in 1909 
have been sewered, and a large sewer-main has been run up 
Nonconnah Creek, that that remote part of the city may be 
connected with the city sewerage. This pipe enables the city 
to dispense with the pumping-station on Wilson Avenue, the one 
at Kyle Street and the Southern Railway. 

During the twenty months for which, Mr. Crump reported, 
one hundred and five streets were paved under the front-foot 
assessment plan; thirty-four streets and alleys were graded, 
paved, curbed and guttered ; 37.29 mile of sewers laid ; 11.7 streets 
resurfaced ; 85 streets and alleys spread with gravel ; 14.4 miles 
of dirt streets rounded up ; 30.6 total mileage of completed 
street pavements laid. Work in all these departments is being 
assiduously continued, and 1912 has seen much addition to the 
above. 

The city's legal business has so increased that a second 
assistant attorney has been added to the force of which Charles 
M. Bryan is city attorney, Leo Goodman, assistant and William 
M. Stanton, second assistant. It is the duty of the second 
assistant to look after unpaid taxes, and his first year of work 
showed an increased collection that proved his need. 

In the Health Department, of which Dr. M. Goltman is 
superintendent, John C. Bell, secretary, Dr. Cummings Harris, 
health officer. Miss Teresa Manley, bookkeeper, and Mr. June 



288 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Sneed, chief sanitary officer, improvements are being made in 
many directions. The garbage system is being improved and 
contains about 85 routes, north and south. It is the rule of 
this department that every portion of the city be visited every 
day, but the force is not large enough to enable this to be done. 
Milk and other pure food laws are strictly enforced and 
results are beneficial to the city thereby. 

A number of bonds have been issued during this adminis- 
tration which, some complain, raises the city debt to appalling 
figures, but each bond was issued for a specific benefit and, as 
Mr. Malone expressed it during his administration, with the 
indebtedness is left an inheritance of great value in the work 
done. 

A street, alley, highway and subway bond of $750,000 has 
been issued to carry on street improvements and to pay the 
city's share of the subway expense. This bond was recom- 
mended by a citizen's committee of tax-payers and was passed 
by the Legislature of February, 1911. 

Another bond, issued by request of the Water Commission, 
and recommended by a citizens' committee "to extend mains 
into territory where sewers had been laid, and where the health 
department was demanding water in the interests of sanita- 
tion," was passed last year by the Legislature. This bond is 
to the amount of $250,000 of negotiable coupon bonds of $1,000 
each, to bear interest of not more than 41/2 per cent. 

A school bond issue of ''$250,000 gave the means to com- 
plete the new high school, erect a grammar school and make 
repairs on numerous other buildings." 

The Tri-State Fair bond was recommended by the city 
commissioners and decided on after a meeting of citizens, who 
indorsed the issuance of such bonds. The Tri-State Fair, given 
annually in Memphis, has proved to be a successful enterprise 
and one calculated to bring much future good not only to 
Memphis, but to all three of the States represented in the 
enterprise. 

$275,000 of negotiable coupon bonds have been issued 
"for the purpose of acquiring property to be used as public 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 289 

recreation parks and playgrounds, and for the maintenance and 
equipment of same." 

The City Treasurer has been made the "tax collector and 
disburser of the municipal taxes of the city of Memphis includ- 
ing all funds derived from assessments for street improve- 
ments and proceeds of all bond sales. He shall have and possess 
all the powers and be subject to all the duties and obligations 
now^ vested in or imposed upon the Treasurer or tax receiver 
of said city, and his compensation for such service is fixed at 
three thousand dollars ($3,000) per annum." The said City 
Treasurer and tax collector is nominated by the Commissioner 
of Accounts, Finances and Revenues, and elected by the Board 
of Commissioners of the city of Memphis. 

Mayor Crump succeeded himself in office in 1912, with Mr. 
R. A. Utley as vice-mayor. 

Chief Davis was succeeded by W. J. Hayes, as Chief of 
Police, Chief Davis to go to the sub-station. Chief Davis has 
served Memphis on the police force for forty-two years, enter- 
ing upon his duties in January, 1870. In 1880 he was appointed 
chief, and again, after having served as Wharfmaster, Hospital 
Superintendent and Court Square Guard, in 1908. His service 
as chief alone has covered eighteen years, and he has witnessed 
and helped in the development of his department of municipal 
discipline in Memphis. 

The new chief has served a number of years on the force 
and comes to his new office from that of Inspector of Police. 
His has also been an up and down experience on the force. 

The winter of 1911-12 was an unusually severe one all over 
the country and the upper Mississippi River was filled was ice, 
as were its upper tributaries. Ice and snow accumulated for 
months and in the spring heavy rains fell. The result was a 
tremendous flood which grew into proportions never before 
known in the history of the Mississippi Valley. Those of 1858 
and 1882 gave forth as great an onrush of waters, but in some 
respects this flood of 1912 surpassed both of those record 
breakers. 

Levees that had been thought impregnable broke as the 
waters surged southward and pressed with a terrific force 



290 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

against these safeguards, and each break carried tremendous 
destruction in its wake, making hundreds of people homeless. 

These homeless ones had to be cared for, and as their 
distresses became known and surmised, Memphis saw the neces- 
sity for quick action, in order to save human beings and their 
stock. By April the situation had grown alarming and a 
mass meeting was held in Memphis for the purpose of providing 
ways to help the suflPerers. A committee was appointed to 
solicit funds and provide for their use. This committee con- 
sisted of Mr. James F. Hunter, Chairman, and Messrs. W. R. 
Barksdale, C. 0. Scholder, F. G. Barton, Fred B. Jones, T. R. 
Boyle and R. G. Brown. This committee met April 8, organized 
and began active duty at once. The first work they did was 
to have skiffs made and to press other boats into immediate 
service. With these they rescued people, cattle and other 
animals in the St. Francis Basin, inundated from the breaking 
of levees, where loss was very great. People were rescued 
from tops of houses, trees and floating debris, some of these 
unfortunates being in half-starved and nearly frozen condition. 

The rescue work was pushed speedily and the next task was 
to provide a place for the shelter of all who were taken up or 
who were known to be homeless. Clothing and food had also 
to be provided, most of the rescued having nothing but the 
bedraggled clothing on their bodies. 

Mayor Crump and Vice-mayor Utley cooperated with the 
committee and they, together with Messrs. J. A. Riechman and 
Frank Omberg, established a Refugees' Camp at Montgomery 
Park, and gave it their strict personal attention. In that 
inclosure over 1,700 people were housed, clothed and fed for 
six weeks, besides a large nvimber of cattle and stock sheltered 
and fed for that time. 

Realizing the stupendous task of earing for all these beings, 
military discipline was established and an excellent sanitary 
system was instituted, in consequence of which the camp was 
managed throughout with order and satisfaction and won the 
compliment of being the best managed camp of all that were 
organized in the valley. 

In answer to the call for funds, food and clothing, Mem- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 291 

phis and other places responded liberally, and abundance came 
flowing in without the necessity of any personal solicitations. 
These contributions were handled by the Committee and the 
Associated Charities, which organization worked with the city 
through the whole undertaking. 

Some food was sent by individuals and business firms, all 
of which was gratefully received, but the daily rations were 
furnished by the government. These consisted of substantial 
and pure food, served in two plentiful meals a day, and pint 
bottles of certified milk were furnished for all the babies. Each 
mother of a babe left the mess-hall after the four o'clock meal, 
with a pint bottle of this pure rich milk for night use for her 
little one. 

The Government sent aid so promptly that the people felt 
very grateful, and the work between the Government employes 
and the committee here w^as so harmonious that Memphis felt 
a great bond had been established with the National as well 
as between the state and municipal government. 

Major J. E. Normoyle of the Government Commissary 
department had his headquarters in Memphis and much credit 
is due him for the able manner in which he organized the 
working forces and for the well-managed distribution of sup- 
plies. The Memphis Committee were in personal touch with 
Major Normoyle while he was in Memphis, and in daily com- 
munication with him when he went South, in obedience to a 
call for help in alleviating suffering there, which had become 
appalling. When this excellent manager left Capt. S. McP. 
Rutherford took charge of the Memphis district and all went 
well under his good management. He was ably assisted by 
Capt. J. A. Logan, Mr. Cooke, Sergeant Edward McCormack 
and Corporal Henry Brouch. 

The territory looked after by Memphis workers was divided 
into three sections. That section of the river from the city 
to seventy-five miles north was taken in charge by Messrs. D. 
H. White and C. 0, Scholder; that portion south to Bledsoe's 
Landing, Arkansas, was under the supervision of Messrs. W. 
R. Barksdale and Doc Hottum, and the interior country in 



292 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

East Arkansas, west of Memphis, was in charge of Mr. F. G. 
Barton. 

Major C. D. Smith is due much credit for the valuable aid 
he rendered in caring for the destitute, as well as those efficient 
workers, Messrs. James Barton, George W. Blackwell, George 
T. Webb, Miss Helen Forsdick and others that gave untiring 
assistance to the cause. 

After the waters subsided and the refugees were sent back 
to their homes, many individual cases of those who had been 
made destitute by the flood, continued to be cared for, this 
attention being chiefly turned over to the Associated Charities 
of Memphis whose employes, headed by Mr. Kranz, served 
untiringly through the whole period, and they cared for the 
destitute from many sections. 

The flood brought more problems to Memphis than that 
of caring for the refugees. This visitation of the waters lasted 
through a long and trying period. The flood stage was passed 
at this point March 22, after which date the water rose steadily 
until far into April, before it began to go down again. So 
much work and expense had been spent on the levees that it 
was thought they would withhold any flood that might come, 
but such an unusual catrastrophe as the flood of this year was 
not contemplated. Forty two feet is the mark considered dan- 
gerous at Memphis, and when that was reached, the rise con- 
tinued daily until April 6, when the gauge was 45.3. This was 
a stage three feet feet higher than the levees had been built 
to hold. On this date a levee gave way nine miles north of 
Memphis and another broke about that distance south. These 
breaks lowered the river but caused the most disastrous dam- 
age ever known in the unfortunate districts back of the crevasses, 
the water rushing in with a fury that carried destruction 
to everything before it. The United States local forecaster, 
Mr. S. C. Emory, said that had the levees not broken, the water 
would have reached a stage of 48 feet. 

The fall was slow even after the breaks, and not until 
May 22, did the water lower to 33 feet, having been above the 
danger level for sixty-one days. The flood of 1882 was above 
flood-stage four days longer. The flood of that year, those of 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 293 

1844 and 1858 and the one of this year are the greatest deluges 
of the Mississippi River on record. 

Most of Memphis is too high to be reached by flood-waters, 
but a section of less than forty acres in North Memphis and a 
few other outlying places are low and they were inundated. 
North Memphis was more overflowed this year than ever before. 
About twenty-five blocks suffered from this damage, many 
residences and business buildings being submerged and some 
mills stopped. Injury to the Gas Works caused the city to 
be shut off from that supply for many days, a great inconveni- 
ence to people dependent on gas for cooking, heating and light- 
ing purposes. Fortunately the electric lights were serviceable 
through the whole time. 

The worst effect to Memphis was contamination of her 
water supply. Some of the artesian wells supplying the city 
were in the overflowed district of North Memphis. As the river 
rose the sewage-pumping station was put out of service and 
much of the sewage of the city was discharged into the flood 
waters. When this fact became known it was not thought 
that any of the wells could be contaminated, but the unusual 
appearance of the water coming from the Auction Street pump- 
ing station about the first of April caused questions to arise, 
and as this appearance continued and increased, investigation 
was made. Examination of the water on April 3, showed it to 
be polluted and later analyses showed the same condition. 
Soon after this discovery much intestinal trouble became pre- 
valent, followed by an epidemic of typhoid fever, and people 
in the down-town district were cautioned not to use the water 
or to boil it before doing so. 

By reducing the pressure of the Auction Avenue station 
and raising it at all other stations, all the impure water was 
driven into the business section, for use in case of fires and 
other emergencies not personal. In the residence districts 
water-pipes were gated off tightly from the pipes connecting 
with the North Memphis supply and the street-sprinkling 
department carried pure water for drinking and cooking pur- 
poses, to people living in the business district or bordering it. 
It was impossible to find the cause of the contamination 



294 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

while the flood lasted, and all that could be done was to ascer- 
tain by constant analyses which water was polluted and which 
pure. As soon as the flood receded the Water and Health 
departments began investigations of all the wells and other 
openings of the artesian supply in North Memphis, and the 
Health Department took measures to clean and disinfect all 
streets and residences that had been lately inundated. 

Mr. George W. Fuller, consulting engineer of New York 
City, was asked by the Water Department to come to Memphis 
the latter part of April for investigation and to make a report 
on the conditions he found. He arrived April 27th, and with 
the cooperation of the Health Department, spent three days 
making a thorough examination, giving his report to the public, 
May 1st. 

He congratulated the work of investigation already made, 
and said that the City Board of Health had practically com- 
pleted all of the inspections Avhen he arrived. This inspection 
had led to the discovery of an opening in Shaft Number 13 
on Third Street, thirteen inches long and from four to eight 
inches in width, through which polluted water had reached 
the Auction Avenue pumping station. 

This break is supposed to have been made three years ago 
presumably by a steam roller, when the street level was raised 
above the shaft to make it part of the bayou levee. This long 
hidden defect in a shaft of such importance to the city water 
supply certainly represents great negligence on the part of 
some one, charged with the vital duty of inspection. 

Besides this opening it was found that water entered the 
tunnel below the cover of the same shaft. Mr. Fuller estimated 
the total opening to be more than eighty square inches in area. 
He was assured that this opening was the cause of the direful 
tffects of the pollution that caused so much trouble. This defect 
is at an elevation 40.5 on the river guage. 

Mr. Fuller said that "in all probability water did not 
immediately enter this opening when the river reached this 
stage, as it was necessary first for the water to wash a pathway 
from the gutter to the opening on the opposite side of the 
shaft." 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 295 

After finding entrance the contaminated water continued 
to pour into the well until the flood dropped below that guage, 
which covered a period of nearly three weeks. 

Close investigations disclosed no other defective shafts, but 
the Auction Avenue pumping station itself showed that seepage 
had entered the dry well in which the pumps are located. It 
is thought that some of this seepage reached suction wells and 
added to the contamination. 

Mr. Fuller recommended that strict precautions be taken 
with North Memphis water until the Health Department was 
thoroughly satisfied with all analyses. He said: "I see no 
signs of the water and health department officials being derelict 
in handling the situation, although it is plain that added pre- 
cautions must be taken to guard against a similar misfortune 
in the future. ' ' 

He also recommended that sewers be carefully inspected 
and kept in thorough condition, and that there be no more 
use of vaults and surface wells, so that "there will be absolute- 
ly no chance whatever for surface pollution to reach the North 
Memphis water supply." 

Mr. Fuller continued: "Employes should be cautioned 
to take every step possible to avoid polluting wells, shafts, 
drifts or tunnels when they are working around and in them." 

Of our other wells he said : ' ' There is no evidence what- 
ever to indicate that there has been any contamination what- 
ever of the water from the segregated wells of those at East 
Memphis or South Memphis. They are located well above the 
flooded area and every analysis that has been made has shown 
a pure water which may be used with entire confidence." 

On the question of abandoning the North Memphis well 
this engineer said : "It has been very fortunate for your 
city that you have had other sources of supply than that at 
North Memphis, and if you can give ordinary water service 
from sources other than North Memphis at reasonable cost 
it would be wise to do so. * * * * 

"On the other hand, I am clearly of the opinion that it is 
not necessary or advisable to abandon the North Memphis 
supply. It is highly urgent to watch it with great care, but 



296 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

even if it is necessary to sterilize the water regularly from 
that source, as is done in scores of places elsewhere, it is a val- 
uable piece of property which I would not think for a moment 
of abandoning." 

He recommended flushing all pipes, saying: "I consider 
it highly important to begin at once to flush thoroughly all the 
water-pipes into which water has been delivered during the 
past few weeks from the Auction Avenue pumping station. 
This had best be done by delivering sterilized water from the 
pumps at their full capacity and opening fire hydrants and 
plumbing fixtures in different districts, so as to remove all 
iron deposits and pollution from the bayou water that may 
have become lodged on the interior surfaces, not only of the 
street mains, but also the service pipes of the consumers. * * * * 
When this district is thoroughly flushed another district adjoin- 
ing it should be similarly treated and so on until all pipes 
have been thoroughly flushed to points most remote from the 
pumping station." 

Dissatisfaction has been expressed by some of the citizens, 
that the city should have been subjected to such an experience 
as the neglected shaft caused which, for a while looked very 
serious indeed, when so much of the tax-payers' money goes for 
salaries of inspectors of various sorts, but after the defective 
shaft was discovered, work went vigorously forward to rectify 
all errors and this accidfent will probably insure all the more 
caution and thorough inspection in all branches of city work in 
the future. 

The city continues to expand. Our own dailies show gen- 
eral growth and papers of other localities compliment the Bluff 
City. 

Following is a list of the mayors, aldermen, councilmen 
and commissioners of the City of Memphis from 1827 : 

March, 1827, to March, 1828 : — Mayor, M. B. Winchester. 
Aldermen, Joseph L. Davis, John Hook, N. B. Atwood, Geo. F. 
Graham, John R. Dougherty, Wm. A. Hardy, Nathaniel Ander- 
son and Littleton Henderson. 

March, 1828 to March, 1829 :— Mayor, M. B. Winchester. 
Aldermen, Samuel Douglass, Wm. A. Hardy, John D. Graham, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 297 

Augustus L. Humphrey, Joseph L. Davis and Robert Fearn, 

March 1829 to March, 1830:— Mayor, Isaac Rawlings. 
Aldermen, M. B. Winchester, A. L. Humphrey, J. L. Davis, J. 
F. Schabell, James L. Vaughn, J. D. Graham and Wyatt Chris- 
tian. 

March, 1830 to March, 1831:— Mayor, Isaac Rawlings. 
Aldermen, John Kitchell, A. L. Humphrey, D. King, E. Young, 
J. L. Davis, H. "W. Mosely, John Coleman, David W. Wood, 
Geo. Aldred and J. F. Schabell. 

March, 1831 to March, 1832 :— Mayor, Seth Wheatley. 
Aldermen. Geo. Aldred, Martin Swope, Ulysses Spaulding, A. 
L. Humphrey, L. Henderson and Thomas Phoebus. 

March, 1832 to March, 1833:— Mayor, Robert Lawrence. 
Aldermen, John Kitchell, E. Coffee, C. C. Locke, J. C. Walker, 
L. Henderson and J. A. H. Cleveland. 

March, 1833 to March, 1834:— Mayor, Isaac Rawlings. 
Aldermen, Littleton Henderson, John F. Schabell, Samuel 
Runkle, Hezekiah Cobb, John W. Fowler, Elijah Coffee and 
Joseph Cooper. 

March, 1834 to March, 1835 :— Mayor, Isaac Rawlings. 
Aldermen, Jedediah Prescott, H. Cobb, M. B. Winchester, John 
W. Fowler, Littleton Henderson and John F. Schabell. 

March, 1835 to March, 1836 :— Mayor, Isaac Rawlings. 
Aldermen, John F. Schabell, James Rose, Joseph Cooper, H. 
Cobb, Silas T. Toncray, S. M. Nelson and Hugh Wheatley. 

March, 1836 to March, 1837:— Mayor, Enoch Banks. 
Aldermen, Silas T. Toncray, Hannibal Harris, Seth Wheatley, 
M. B. Winchester, Hugh Wheatley, James Rose, John Hare, S. 
M. Nelson, R. G. Hart and Joseph Cooper. 

March, 1837 to March, 1838:— Mayor, John H. Morgan. 
Aldermen, Frank McMahan, S. T. Toncray, A. H. Bowman, L. 
C. Trezevant, Charles Stuart, Zachariah Edmunds, Joseph 
Cooper, Barnett Graham, H. Cobb and James D. Currin. 

March, 1838 to March, 1839 :— Mayor, Enoch Banks. Alder- 
men, Jedediah Prescott, James D. Currin, Lewis C. Trezevant, 
Lewis Shanks, A. H. Bowman, Edwin Hickman and Gray 
Skipwith. 

March, 1839 to March, 1840:— Mayor, Thomas Dixon. 



298 History of MempJiis, Tennessee. 

Aldermen, Jedediah Prescott, Joseph Wright, Samuel Hayter, 
E. Hickman, C. Stewart, C. B. Murray, "William Spickernagle. 

March, 1840 to March, 1841: — Mayor, Thomas Dixon. 
Aldermen, Michael Leonard, Joseph Wright, C. B. Murray, 
Jacob M. Moon, T. C. McMakin, E. Hickman, L. C. Trezevant, 
W. B. Garrison. 

March, 1841 to IMarch, 1842:— Mayor, William Spicker- 
nagle. Aldermen, Joseph Wright, Michael Leonard, L. C. Trez- 
evant, J. N. Moon, Charles Stewart, F. P. Stanton, J. Prescott, 
H. Cobb, John Trigg. 

March, 1842 to March, 1843 :— Mayor, Edwin Hickman. 
Aldermen, C. C. Mahan, V. Ferguson, C. Bias, C. Lofland, E. 
H. Porter, Wm. Chase, A. Walker, J. C. Davenport, M. Gab- 
bert, W. B. Waldran, H. Cobb, L. Shanks, W. A. Bickford, 
W. Test, J. Prescott, John Wood, Eugene Magevney. 

March, 1843, to March, 1844:— Mayor, Edwin Hickman. 
Aldermen, J. Prescott, H. Cobb, William Spickernagle, C. Bias, 
Wm. Chase, E. H. Porter, John Woods, E. Magevney, W. B. 
Waldran, Calvin Goodman, L. Shanks, Thomas Whitelaw, L. R. 
Richard. 

March, 1844, to March, 1845: — Mayor, Edwin Hickman. 
Aldermen, Wm. Spickernagle, J. D. Allen, Lewis Shanks, 
Joseph Wright, Wm. Council, Charles A. Leath, E. Magevney, 
J. B. Outlaw, J. T. N. Bridges, M. B. Sappington, Wm. F. 
Allen, John A. Allen, Calvin Goodman, W. B. Waldran, Dr. 
Jeptha Fowlkes, John Trigg, David Looney, L. Shanks. 

March, 1845 to March, 1846 :— Mayor, J. J. Finley. Alder- 
men, Jos. D. Allen, William Goodman, Jos. Wright, Daniel 
Hughes, Jeptha Fowlkes, Wm. Chase, David Looney, J. R. 
Maltbie, E. F. Watkins, Calvin Goodman, Gardner B. Locke, 
D. S. Greer, E. M. Apperson, Lewis Shanks, Miles Owen, J. 
Delafield. 

March, 1846 to March, 1847 :— Mayor Edwin Hickman. 
Aldermen, Joseph D. Allen, Michael Leonard, Jeptha Fowlkes, 
Daniel Hughes, D. 0. Dooley, E. H. Porter, E. Magevney, Wm. 
Carter, Wiley B. Miller, Samuel Mosby, E. Banks, A. 0. Harris, 
V. D. Barry. 

March, 1847 to March, 1848 : — Mayor, Enoch Banks. Alder- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 299 

men, Joseph D. Allen, J. W. A. Pettit, J. Fowlkes, Daniel 
Hughes, Wm. Connell, V, D. Barry, S. A. Norton, Joseph I. 
Andrews, Samuel Mosby, W. B. Miller. 

March, 1848 to March, 1849:— Mayor, Gardner B. Locke. 
Aldermen, Benj. Wright, J. "W. A. Pettit, Jeptha Fowlkes, 
Daniel Hughes, James Wright, V. D. Barry, R. L. Kay, E. 
Magevney, J. M. Patrick, S. B. Williamson. 

March, 1849 to July, 1850:— Mayor, E. Hickman. Alder- 
men, H. Cobb, T. James, L. Shanks, J. Weller, E. H. Porter, 
H. B. Joyner, V. Rhodes, E. McDavitt, R. A. Parker, H. G. 
Smith, D. Looney, A. 0. Harris, N. B. Holt, S. W. Jefferson, 
A. B. Taylor, G. W. Murphy, W. Carr, J. L. Webb, H. L. Guion, 

July, 1850 to July, 1851 : — Mayor, E. Hickman. Aldermen, 
Thomas Conway, John Kehoe, E. McDavitt, E. H. Porter, S. W. 
Jefferson, A. D. Henkle, S. P. Walker, D. Looney, A. B. Shaw, 
J. Waldran, G. W. Smith, A. B. Taylor. 

July, 1851 to July, 1852 : — Mayor, E. Hickman. Aldermen, 
F. Titus, T. Conway, E. H. Porter, E. McDavitt, S. W. Jeffer- 
son, A. D. Henkle, David Looney, S. P. Walker, J. M. Patrick, 
A. B. Shaw, Wm. Ruffin, G. W. Smith, W. S. Cockrell, A. Wood- 
ruff, J. D. Danbury. 

July, 1852 to July, 1853 :— Mayor, A. B. Taylor. Alder- 
men, J. Kehoe, B. Wright, A. Woodruff, R. W. Thompson, A. 
D. Henkle, M. Eagan, S. P. Walker, J. D. Danbnry, A. B. Shaw, 
T. W. Hunt, A. N. Edmunds, M. Jones, A. P. Merrill, F. Lane, 
J. M. Patrick, A. G. Underwood, 

July, 1853 to July, 1854:— Mayor, A. B. Taylor. Alder- 
men, Thos. Conway, Dr. L. Shanks, E. McDavitt, W. M. Mad- 
dox, E. Magevney, S. W. Jefferson, S. P. Walker, A. Whipple, 
T. W. Hunt, J. M. Patrick, Marcus Jones, John Wiley, R. W. 
Thompson, John Park, Charles Jones. 

July, 1854 to July, 1855 :— Mayor, A. B. Taylor. Alder- 
men, John L. Saffarans, Dan '1 Hughes, S. B. Curtis, John Neal, 
A. Street, A. M. Hopkins, A. A. Smithwick, J. L. Morgan, J. 
M. Patrick, James Jenkins, W. E. Milton, A. H. Douglass, A. 
Woodruff, W, Houston, J. D. Danbury. 

July, 1855 to July, 1856 :— Mayor, A. H. Douglass. Alder- 
men, John L. Saffarans, Dan'l Hughes, S. B. Curtis, John Neal, 



300 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

A. Woodruff, Jas. Elder, W. R. Chandler, J. D. Danbury, James 
Jenkins, Jno. L. Morgan, W. E. Milton, F. M. Copeland, A, B. 
Shaw. 

July, 1856 to July, 1857:— Mayor, T. B. Carroll. Alder- 
men, John L. Saffarans, Daniel Hughes, S. B. Curtis, L. J. 
Dupre, W. F. Barry, James Elder, C. M. Faekler, T. J. Finnic, 
Jno. Smoot, A. B. Shaw, D. Bogart, F. M. Copeland, A. H. 
Douglass, R. Wormeley. 

July, 1857 to July, 1858 :— Mayor, R. D. Baugh. Aldermen, 
Dan'l Hughes, J. S. Irwin, A. Street, W. 0. Lofland, A. Wood- 
ruff, R. S. Jones, Thos. J. Finnie, I. M. Hill, F. M. E. Falkner, 
T. A. Hamilton, John Martin, F. M. Copeland. 

July, 1858 to July, 1859 :— Mayor, R. D. Baugh. Aldermen, 
J. 0. Drew, Daniel Hughes, A. Street, R. H. Norris, Chas. Kor- 
trecht, N. B. Forrest, James Elder, T. J. Finnie, T. A, Hamilton, 

A. H. Douglass, G. P. Foute, D. H. Townsend, John B. Robin- 
son, F. M. Copeland, Jno. Neal, S. W. Jefferson, S. T. Morgan. 

July, 1859 to July, I860:— Mayor, R. D. Baugh. Alder- 
men, Jno. 0. Drew, Samuel Tighe, A. Street, N. B. Forrest, 
James Elder, C. Potter, T. A. Hamilton, A. H. Douglass, W. 
E. Milton, Marcus Jones, I. N. Barnett, Wm. Farris, J. C. Grif- 
fing, W. M. Perkins, D. H. Townsend, S. T. Morgan, W. 0. Lof- 
land, C. Kortrecht. 

July, 1860 to July, 1861 :— Mayor, R. D. Baugh. Alder- 
men, Daniel Hughes, P. T. O'Mahoney, S. T. Morgan, R. S. 
Joyner, J. J. Worsham, N. B. Forrest, J. M. Crews, A. P. Mer- 
rill, D. B. Malloy, R. M. Kirby, John Martin, C. W. Frazier, J. 

B. Robinson, D. G. Feger, H. Volentine, W. C. Anderson, W. S. 
Pickett. 

July, 1861 to July, 1862 :— Mayor, John Park. Aldermen, 
Samuel Tighe, G. M. Grant, M. E. Cochran, S. T. Morgan, L. 
Amis, Jr., C. Kortrecht, A. P. Merrill, L. J. Dupre, J. 0. Green- 
law, R. M. Kirby, D. H. Townsend, C. M. Farmer, John B. 
Robinson, J. M. Patrick, H. Volentine, F. M. Gailor, T. S. 
Ayres. 

July, 1862 to July, 1863 :— Mayor, John Park. Aldermen, 
S. Tighe, J. C. Powers, Paul Schuster, G. D. Johnson, L. Wun- 
derman, B. F. C. Brooks, H. B. Henghold, M. Mulholland, Wm. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 301 

Harvey, James Hall, S. Ogden, John Gager, B. Fenton, S. T. 

Morgan, M. McEncroe, A. P. Merrill, C. M. Farmer, J. 0. Drew, 

H. T. Hulbert, S. A. Moore, C. Deloacli. 

July, 1863 to July, 1864:— Mayor, John Park. Aldermen, 

J. Donovan, J. Glaney, G. D. Johnson, S. T. Morgan, L. Amis, 

L. Wunderman, A. P. Merrill, C. A. Stillman, M. Mulholland, 

W. W. Jones, G. W. Harver, M. McEncroe, M. Kelley, W. P. 

Evans, H. T. Hulbert, H. Volentine. 

July, 1864 to July, 1865 :— Mayors, Lieut.-Colonel Thos. 

H. Harris and Captain C. Richards. Aldermen, J. P. Foster, 

A. Renkert, G. D. Johnson, S. T. Morgan, B. F. C. Brooks, A. 

J. Miller, I. M. Hill, J. G. Owen, W. S. Bruce, W. W. Jones, J. 

E. Merriman, C. C. Smith, G. P. Ware, Jos. Tagg, Patrick 
Sherry, H. T. Hulbert, J. B. Wetherill, H. G. Smith, W. R. 

Moore, W. M. Farrington. 

July, 1865 to July, 1866 :— Mayor, John Park. Aldermen, 
John Glaney, E. V. O'Mahoney, S. T. Morgan, J. H. Reany, 
Louis Wunderman, Thomas Leonard, I. M. Hill, A. P. Burdett, 
A. Hitzfield, M. Burke, R. K. Becktell, Wm. M. Harvey, John 
S. Toof, M. Kelly, J. F. Green, G. D. Johnson, D. R. Grace, 
Thomas O'Donnell, S. P. Walker, R. W. Creighton. 

July, 1866 to July, 1868 :— Mayor, Wm. 0. Lofland. Alder- 
men, J. J. Powers, John Glaney, G. D. Johnson, M. E. Cochran, 
E. W. Wickersham, L. Amis, R. P. Boiling, H. J. Lynn, T. W. 
O'Donnell, J. C. Hoist, A. T. Shaw, D. H. Townsend, H. Lemon, 
T. 0. Smith, W. H. Passmore, H. T. Hulbert. 

42nd Corporate Year, 1869 :— Mayor, John W. Lelfwich. 
Aldermen, Thos. Foley, E. Marshall, James 0. Durff, L. E. 
Dyer, Thos. W. O'Donnell, James Gallager, S. Ogden, L. M. 
Wolcott, L. D. Vincent, J. E. Williams. 

43rd Corporate Year, 1870: — Mayor, John Johnson. 
Aldermen, Owen Dwyer, Phil. J. Mallon, J. 0. Durff, I. T. 
Cartwright, J. C. Hoist, Thos. B. Norment, A. J. Roach, Thomas 
Moffatt, J. P. Prescott, James Rounds. Councilmen, John 
Glaney, Patrick J. Kelly, William Chase, J. M. Graves, 0. F. 
Prescott, James Birmington, R. P. Duncan, M. Pepper, Owen 
Smith, M. Cohen, R. A. Parker, H. M. James, J. B. Signaigo, 



302 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Patrick Twohig, John Hallum, William Hewitt, William Miller, 
M. Doyle, George Dixon, D. F. Boon. 

44th Corporate Year, 1871 : — Mayor, John Johnson. Alder- 
men. Owen Dwyer, Phil. J. Mallon, T. F. Maekall, I. T. Cart- 
wright, J. C. Hoist, P. A. Cicalla, H. G. Dent, Thos. Moffatt, A. 
C. Bettis, M. J. Pendergrast. Councilmen, John Zent, John 
Walsh, William Chase, R. W. Lightburne, Lewis Amis, Jr., 
Henry Eschman, R. P. Duncan, J. M. Pettigrew, N. Malatesta, 
James Bachman, J. B. Signaigo, Patrick Twohig, J. D. Ruffin, 
W. M. Harvey, J. Genette, J. R. Grehan, Gus. Reder, J. F. 
Schabell, J. II. Smith, M. Poland. 

45th Corporate Year, 1872 -.—Mayor, John Johnson. Alder- 
men, John Walsh, Phil J. Mallon, T. F. Maekall, J. M. Petti- 
grew, N. Malatesta, P. A. Cicalla, H. G. Dent, M. Burke, B. F. 
White, Jr., M. J. Pendergrast. Councilmen, John Zent, Thos. 
Foley, S. B. Robbins, William Schade, Jacob Steinkuhl, A. D. 
Gibson, C. A. Beehn, J. L. Norton, James Bachman, W. P. 
Martin, J. Halstead, W. M. Harvey, A. J. White, A. H. Dicker- 
son, J. Genette, H. Marks, J. F. Schabell, Gus Reder, J. II. 
Smith, P. Colligan. 

46th Corporate Year, 1873 :— Mayor, John Johnson. Alder- 
men, John Walsh, S. B. Robbins, Andrew Davis, J. M. Petti- 
grew, N. Malatesta, P. A. Cicalla, J. J. Busby, M. Burke, B. F. 
White, Jr., P. Colligan. Councilmen, John Zent, M. V. Hol- 
brook, William Hewitt, Wm. J. Chase, C. A. Beehn, J. L. Nor- 
ton, A. R. Droescher, John A. Roush, Edward Shaw, Joseph 
Clouston, Jr., Benj. Bingham, C. E. Clark, S. C. Toof, Turner 
Hunt, A. J. White, John P. Hughes, Geo. M. Grant, P. S. Sim- 
ons, J. H. Smith, Turner Mason. 

47th Corporate Year, 1874 :— Mayor, John Logue. Alder- 
men, Owen Dwyer, S. B. Robbin, Andrew Davis, N. Malatesta, 
H. G. Dent, J. T. Hillsman, H. S. Lee, Mike J. Doyle, P. Culli- 
gan. Councilmen, P. J. Kelly, J. Walsh, W. J. Chase, William 
Hewitt, C. A. Beehn, A. G. Tuther, J. A. Rourke, C. E. Keck, 
J. Clouston, I. Thomas, W. M. Harvey, J. Happeck, J. S. Car- 
penter, T. Hunt, J. W. Hagley, B. E. Bounds, J. T. Walters, C. 
E. Page, G. A. Morti, J. H. Moon. 

48th Corporate Year, 1875 :— Mayor, John League. Alder- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 303 

men, Owen Dwyer, S. B. Robbins, C. W. Metealf, H. G. Dent, 
J. T. Hillsman, I. Happeek, H. S. Lee, Mike J. Doyle, P. Culli- 
gan, G. A. Morti. Councilmen, John Zent, P. J. Kelley, Wil- 
liam Hewitt, H. Caso, S. J. Camp, A. G. Tuther, S. W. Green, 
Henry Luehrmann, R. Dougherty, J. Clouston, Jr., Charles G. 
Fisher, William Gay, S. Solari, J. S. Carpenter, J. W. Moore, 
J. W. Cochran, L. D. Grant, J. D. Danbury, T. A. Ryan, Jacob 
Moon. 

49th Corporate Year, 1876: — Mayor, John R. Flippin. 
Aldermen, John Zent, W. A. McCloy, James Elder, S. W. Green, 
H. G. Dent, W. 0. Harvey, W. N. Brown, J. W. Cochran, L. D. 
Grant, Thomas Fleming. Councilmen, P. J. Kelly, J. W, 
Kerns, J. M. Rourke, John Donovan, Thomas Doyie, James 
Speed, H. M. Neely, J. T. Blaise, R. Dougherty, E. Hardin, 
Jacob Weller, A. W. Otis, R. C. Wenson, W. H. Bates, H. Sees- 
sell, Sr., R. B. Denson, E. J. Karr, W. B. Glisson, W. M. Hill, 
George Hutchinson. 

50th Corporate Year, 1877 :— Mayor, John R. Flippin. 
Aldermen, John Zent, W. A. McCloy, James Elder, S. W. Green, 
H. G. Dent, W. 0. Harvey, W. N. Brown, J. W. Cochran, L. D. 
Grant, John A. Strehl. Councilmen, John Bohan, P. J. Kelly, 
J. M. Rourke, E. Worsham, Thomas Doyle, J. B. Dillard, R. 
Britton, S. T. Carnes, R. Dougherty, G. E. Evans, T. J. Beasley, 
M. Jones, W. H. Bates, R. C. Williamson, H. Sessell, Sr., J. P. 
Hughes, A. W. Newsom, John Scheibler, E. W. Clapp, P. Culli- 
gan. 

51st Corporate Year, 1878: — Mayor, John R. Flippin. 
Aldermen, W. J. Chase, J. M. Rourke, James Elder, J. B. 
Faires, H. G. Dent, W. N. Brown, J. W. Moores, William Benjes,. 
John A. Strehl. Councilmen, W. P. Proudfit P. C. Rogers, James 
Bohan, A, Renkert, Herman Caro, D. F. Goodyear, C. Quentel, 
H. L. Brinkley, I. N. Snowden, W. J. Crosbie, C. G. Fischer, 
Charles Kortrecht, W. H. Bates, R. C. Williamson, M. Selig, J. 
P. Hughes, L. Lanborn, James Brogan, P. 0. Wood, Willis 
Radford. 

52nd Corporate Year, 1879 : — Mayor, John R. Flippin. 
Aldermen, W. J. Chase, William Hewitt, Thomas Doyle, S. W. 
Green, H. G. Dent, M. Jones, W. N. Brown, W. F. Kennedy, 



304 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

William Benjes, P. Culligan. Councilmen, James Bohan, J, C. 
Powers, J. M. Rourke, S. L. Barinds, N. Hooth, C. Geis, P. 
Twohig, N. N. Speers, G. E. Evans, J. H. White, D. Gensburger, 
W. H. Bates, S. Solari, M. Selig, W. H. Bunford, J. Pickering, 
L. Lanborn, J. Sweeney, P. Slogan. (The board of this year 
had only served a month when the city charter was repealed, 
a new form of government established and new officers 
installed.) 

Taxing District, 1879 :— President, D. T. Porter. Fire and 
Police Commissioners, John Overton, Jr., Michael Burke. Sec- 
retary, L. C. Pullen. Supervisors of Public Works, C. W. 
Goyer, chairman; John Gunn, W. N. Brown, J. M. Goodbar, 
Robert Galloway. 

Taxing District, 1881 to 1883 :— President, John Overton, 
Jr. Fire and Police Commissioners, Michael Burke, R. C. 
Graves. Secretary, C. L. Pullen. Supervisors of Public Works, 
W. N. Brown, chairman; John Green, J. M. Goodbar, Robert 
Galloway, Henry James. 

Taxing District, 1883 to 1885 :— President, D. P. Hadden. 
Michael Burke, R. C. Graves. Secretary, C. L. Pullen. Super- 
visors of Public Works, James Lee, Jr., chairman; Henry 
James, M. Gavin, Charles Kney, Lymus Wallace. 

1885 to 1887 :— President, D. P. Hadden. Fire and Police 
Commissions, James Lee, H. A. Montgomery. Secretary, C. L. 
Pullen. Supervisors of Public Works, Charles Kney, Lymus 
Wallace, R. F. Patterson, T. J. Graham, John E. Randle. 

1887 to 1889 :— President, D. P. Hadden. Fire and Police 
Commissioners, James Lee, H. A. Montgomery. Secretary, C. 
L. Pullen. Supervisors of Public Works, Charles Kney, Lymus 
Wallace, R. F. Patterson, T. J. Graham, John E. Randle. 

1889 to 1891 :— President, D. P. Hadden. Fire and Police 
Commissioners, James Lee, Jr., J. T. Pettit. Secretary, C. L. 
Pullen. Supervisors of Public Works, Charles Kney, Lymus 
Wallace, Samuel Hirsch, T. J. Graham, John E. Randle. 

1891 to 1893 :— President, W. D. Bethell. Fire and Police 
Commissioners, J. T. Pettit, Martin Kelly. Secretary, Henry 
J. Lynn. Supervisors of Public Works, T. J. Graham, Samuel 
Hirsch, E. J. Carrington, Geo. Haszinger, Geo. H. Herbers. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 305 

1893 to 1895 :— President, W. L. Clapp. Fire and Police 
Commissioners, R. A. Speed, Martin Kelly. Secretary, J. J. 
Shea. Supervisors of Public Works : — J. T. Walsh, A. T. Hay- 
den, E. J. Carrington, George Haszinger, G. H. Herbers. 

1895 to 1897 :— Mayor, W. L. Clapp. Fire and Police Com- 
missioners, J. M. Fowlkes, vice-mayor, Hugh L. Brinkley, J. F. 
Walker. Supervisors of Public Works, J. T. Walsh, A. T. Hay- 
den, E. J. Carrington, George Haszinger, G. H. Herbers. 

1897 to 1898 : — Same as preceding. 

1898 to 1900:— Mayor, J. J. Williams. Fire and Police 
Commissioners, D. P. Hadden, vice-mayor, Hugh L. Brinkley, 
J. F. Walker, secretary in 1898 and W. B. Armour, secretary in 
1899. Supervisors of Public Works, J. T. Walsh, E. J. Carring- 
ton, Thomas Clark, B. R. Henderson. 

1900 to 1902:— Mayor, J. J. Willia'ms. Fire and Police 
Commissioners, D. P. Hadden, vice-mayor, H. L. Brinkley, W. 
B. Armour, secretary. Supervisors of Public Works, E. C. 
Green, W. LaCroix, H. H. Litty, G. D. Raine, P. J. Moran. 

1902 to 1904:— Mayor, J. J. Williams. Fire and Police 
Commissioners, B. R. Henderson, vice-mayor, John Armistead, 
W. B. Armour, secretary. Supervisors of Public Works, E. C. 
Green, Wm. LaCroix, H. H. Litty, E. B. LeMaster, G. R. James, 
W. D. Moon, E. F. Grace, David Gensburger. 

1904 to 1906:— Mayor, J. J. Williams. Fire and Police 
Commissioners, B. R. Henderson, vice-mayor, John T. Walsh, 
W. B. Armour, secretary. Supervisors of Public Works, D. 
Gensburger, A. B. Caruthers, G. C. Love, Thomas Dies, E. F. 
Grace, G. M. Tidwell, W. D. Moon, E. B. LeMaster. 

1906 to 1908 :— Mayor, James H. Malone. Fire and Police 
Commissioners, John T. Walsh, vice-mayor, H. T. Bruce, B. G. 
Henning, D. S. Rice. Supervisors of Public Works, G. C. Love, 
Thos. Dies, G. M. Tidwell, Louis Sambucetti, E. H. Crump, J. S. 
Dunscomb, A. H. Frank, F. F. Hill, R. A. Utley, W. T. Winkle- 
man. 

1908 to 1910 :— Mayor, James H. Malone. Fire and Police 
Commissioners, J. T. Walsh, vice-mayor, H. T. Bruce, B. G. 
Henning, E. H. Crump. Supervisors of Public Works, G. C. 
Love, Thomas Dies, C. W. Edmonds, Louis Sambucetti, P. J. 



306 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Moran, J. S. Dunscomb, A. H. Frank, F. F. Hill, R. A. Utley, 
H. F. Henderson. 

Commission Government, 1910 to 1912: Mayor, E. H. 
Crump. Department Public Affairs, E. H. Crump. Depart- 
ment Accounts, Finances and Revenues, C. "W. Edmonds. 
Department Fire and Police, J. M. Speed. Department Public 
Utilities, Grounds and Buildings, Thomas Dies. Department 
Streets, Bridges and Sewers, G. C. Love. 

Commission Government, 1912: — Mayor, E. H. Crump. 
Department Public Affairs and Health, E. H. Crump. Depart- 
ment Accounts, Finances and Revenues, E. R. Parham. Depart- 
ment Fire and Police, R. A. Utley. Department Public Utilities, 
Grounds and Buildings, Thomas Dies. Department Streets, 
Bridges and Sewers, G. C. Love. 

Memphis has given to the Nation a number of distinguished 
characters, civil and military. Among these are : 

Luke E. Wright, Governor General of the Philippines; Am- 
bassador to Japan ; Secretary of War. 

United States Senators : — Isham G. Harris, Thomas B. 
Turley and E. W. Carmack. 

Governors : — James C. Jones, Isham G. Harris and M. R. 
Patterson. 

Congressmen: — Frederick P. Stanton, W. T. Avery, W. J. 
Smith, Wm. R. Moore, Casey Young, Zach Taylor, Josiah Pat- 
terson, E. W. Carmack, M. R. Patterson, G. W. Gordon, K. D. 
McKellar. 

Military Men: — Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford For- 
rest, Lieutenant General A. P. Stewart, Major General Marcus 
J. Wright, Brigadier General Preston Smith, Brigadier Gen- 
eral John Adams, Brigadier General John L. T. Sneed and 
General William H. Carroll. 

In addition to the above, were the following distinguished 
colonels, whose deeds shed luster on Memphis : 

Colonels: — Michael Magevney, Charles M. Carroll, Ed. 
Pickett, Jr., J. Knox Walker, T. W. Preston, Kit Williams, 
Luke W. Finley, Wm. F. Taylor. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Architecture and Public Buildings. 

4i^^HE architecture of the city of Memphis, like all other 
/I I American cities, has passed through various stages, 
^■^ from the log hut and frame dwelling, crude at first and 
without any claim to distinction, step by step, to the palatial 
homes of our present day. 

Public and business buildings have likewise developed 
from a mediocre beginning to the beautiful structures which 
are now erected to house our people in their business and public 
life. Among the first buildings claiming any distinction what- 
ever were those erected for business houses, mostly in the 
fifties, a row of three or four stories, with little or no variation, 
and if any, only in a minor treatment of window and door 
openings, with a cornice of metal in imitation of a more per- 
manent structure. A number of these buildings still exist on 
our principal streets and with the exception of perhaps the 
lower stories, which have been modernized to suit present needs 
and conditions, they still serve their original purpose. 

A departure from this style of building brought about 
another class of structures overladen with crude, meaningless 
cornices and ornamental work, claiming no merit except the 
individuality of the architect or master builders who were 
responsible for their creation. 

To this period of our city's history likewise belongs the 
early frame dwellings, a few of which are still in existence. 
The greater number, how^ever, have disappeared as the business 
center of the city has expanded; but a few homes, although 
erected in frame, were well designed in Colonial or Neo Greek 



308 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

style of architectures which prevailed in this country at the 
times these houses were erected. 

At the time Richardson, the architect, was erecting his 
buildings in a castellated or American adaptation of Roman- 
esque style of architecture, the Cossitt Library was built and 
this building is an example of the style of architecture pre- 
valent at this time. This style supplanted the so-called Queen 
Anne, of which there are very few examples in this city ; for 
while it was well adapted to frame dwellings it was but little 
used here. 

The iron front for business buildings, of which various 
cities in this country contain innumerable examples, was used 
here in a limited number of cases for such purposes. One of 
the largest erected in this country at the time, 1858, we claim 
to have in this city, on Second Street, between Adams and 
Jefferson Avenues. If they may be classed in any particular 
style of architecture it belongs to a renaissance period con- 
sisting of a superimposed order of architecture with a crown- 
ing cornice of classical profile. 

Architecture, since the periods enumerated above, has 
steadily improved in quality, as the conditions justified more 
expensive and permanent buildings. The Iibrter Building 
marked a new epoch in construction, inasmuch as it was the 
first building erected of steel and skeleton construction in 
this city. Of later years we have many examples of this same 
class of construction represented by both public and business 
or office buildings, among them being the Tennessee Trust, 
Memphis Trust, Central Bank and Exchange buildings. 

During recent years the architecture of the public schools 
has likewise kept pace with the improvements in other lines 
of buildings until at the present time our schools are excellent 
examples of scholastic architecture. The improvement, how- 
ever, has been most noticeable in our domestic architecture 
until at present we number among our homes some of the most 
beautiful residences erected in this section of the country. 

It would hardly be permissible to review the architecture 
of this city without making mention of the churches which 
have been erected within the past few years and of which we 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 309 

have some very beautiful examples. These, however, owing 
to changing conditions, are gradually being removed to the 
suburbs or residential sections of the city. 

To the business and public buildings belong the credit 
for the most decided change and improvements and the one 
most likely to impress the visitor to our city, and an historical 
sketch of Memphis would not be complete without special men- 
tion of the beautiful Court House and Municipal Building 
recently erected, which is treated further on in this chapter. 

The office buildings are purely commercial structures but 
have played a very important part in the architecture of the 
city. Our business section is rapidly assuming a metropolitan 
condition as a result of the buildings that have been erected 
for office and commercial purposes within the past few years. 

"With the exception of the small bust of Andrew Jackson 
in Court Square, we were entirely without monuments until 
the erection of the General Forrest statue in Forrest Park a 
few years ago. This statue, the work of the sculptor Charles 
Niehaus, is a beautiful example of his work. Within more 
recent years a memorial fountain and pergola have been erected 
in Overton Park ; likewise a bust of Captain Harvey Mathes 
in Confederate Park; but with these exceptions Memphis is 
unfortunately lacking in works of art of this nature. 

Taking an unbiased view of the architecture of the city 
of Memphis, we feel that we can compare favorably with other 
cities of our class, that the conditions and continued improve- 
ments are most encouraging and that our city will eventually 
be a city beautiful.* 

The public buildings of Memphis will be treated of only 
as they exist at present. There are few in the remote past 
worthy of attention. Indeed, for a period of about thirty 
years of her existence it was playfully said by Memphians that 
there was but one building in the city in which they could 
take a pride and that was their jail. 

Beginning with the most important building of the city, 

the new Shelby County Court House, it is in wonderful con- 

*For the details of this sketch of Memphis architecture the editor 
is indebted to Mr. M. H. Furbringer, of Jones & Furbringer, prominent 
local architects. 



310 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

trast with the little log structure of 1820, costing $175.00. 
The present enormous but classic structure occupies the whole 
square bounded by Adams and Washington Avenues and Sec- 
ond and Third Streets. This court house is surpassed in sym- 
metry of design and convenience of arrangement by no county 
building in the United States, though several actually cost 
two or three times as much. The description embodied in 
the report of the Court House Commission which built it can- 
not be improved upon and will here be given in part: 

"The exterior of the building is classical, a modified 
Ionic. The southern front presents a lengthy portico with four- 
teen Ionic columns, the shafts left unfluted, resting on pedes- 
tals of the same height as a heavily latticed balustrade. The 
principal entrances are three, one at each end of the southern 
front and one at the southern extremity of the western side. 
These entrances are joined by the front portico; they project 
slightly from the front and side and rise two stories to pedi- 
ments, each of which is supported by two columns of the same 
order as those of the portico. Preserving the architectural 
unity, there has been introduced a similar entrance at the 
southern extremity of the eastern side as well as the northern 
extremities of both sides but on account of the height of the 
bases, these entrances have been converted into balconies 
which, but for the additions of balustrades similar to that of 
the main portico, correspond in every respect with the main 
entrances. * * * * All columns are so placed as to come 
between windows and thus in no way interfere with light or 
ventilation. * * * * The sides are severely plain except for 
the introduction of pilasters the full height of the two stories 
between the windows and recessed panels between the second 
and third rows of windows. All the side windows are simple 
plain openings in the walls but the lower tier in the front has 
plain mouldings around the tops and sides; the ornaments of 
the upper tier of windows in the front are formed by the 
interior frieze of the portico and by sills of plain mouldings. 
The extremely long lines of the cornice all around the building, 
with the exception of the parts pertaining to the pediments, 
have been interrupted by the introduction of lion's heads at 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 311 

frequent intervals. The plain surface of the frieze except that 
on the sides between the pediments, has been relieved by the 
addition of wreathes near the end. The cornice is topped by 
a comparatively high parapet capped with simple mouldings. 
All door openings are ornamented with carved mouldings on 
the lintels and jambs and covered with richly carved canopies. 
The apex of each pediment supports a collossal head of Minerva 
from each side of which drops a richly carved cresting entirely 
to and around the eaves. * * * * 

"On the cornice of the six-column portico of the northern 
front are placed six figures representing Integrity, Courage, 
Mercy, Temperance, Prudence and Learning. They are cut 
from the same kind of stone as that in the building and are 
more than double life-size. 

"Life-size groupes are carved in high relief on the webs 
of the pediments. They represent Religious Law, Roman Law, 
Statutory Law, Common Law, Civil Law and Criminal Law. 

"The approaches on the east and west side of the main 
front and that at the south of the west side are imposing flights 
of granite steps flanked by heavy walls which finish at the 
tops at the sides of the entrances in massive pedestals on which 
rest seated figures of heroic size, cut from single stones of 
Tennessee white marble, representing Wisdom, Justice, Lib- 
erty, Authority, Peace and Prosperity. These sculptures are 
said to be the largest figures in the country cut from single 
blocks of marble. 

' ' The floors of all corridors and public parts of courtrooms 
and offices are Tennessee gray marble. The sides of all corri- 
dors have base and high wainscoting of beautifully veined 
Tennessee marble. The courtrooms, entrance halls to offices 
and public parts of offices have similar bases and wainscoting 
but not quite so high as that of the corridors. The marble, a 
variegated grayish red, in addition to veins of undecided color- 
ing carries heavy veins of pronounced dark red. In the pan- 
nelings the slabs have been so joined as to match the veinings 
into a variety of surprising beautiful effects. 

"The interior woodwork, doors, partitions, rails and gen- 
eral finishings are mahogany, with bronze lock, hinges and 



312 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

trimmings. Chipped glass is used in all doors opening on the 
corridors and frosted glass in office partitions. Electric light 
and gas fixtures are bronze, in heavy ornamental designs. 
Floors are laid with rubber tile or cork carpet, the former in 
all the courtrooms and the latter in the private parts of all 
offices. The beautiful front corridor looks directly on the 
front portico and receives the southern sun through thirteen 
windows. The principal decorative effect has been successfully 
attempted in the design and execution of this really magnifi- 
cent entrance hall. Seven different marbles from Vermont, 
Pennsylvania, Alabama and Tennessee have been used in its 
embellishment. The design satisfies the anticipation excited 
by the exterior and maintains the architectural unity. A 
Grecian ceiling is divided into 15 panels, two at the end and 
13 corresponding to the front windows. The panels are marked 
by beautiful cornices with beds ornamented by guilded Grecian 
borders and rosettes enclosing heavily gilded plain frames. On 
the cornices one moulding only on the sides and one only on 
the lower faces are gilded. The ceiling is supported by marble 
pilasters in pairs corresponding to the cornices of the ceiling 
panels. These pilasters are a beautiful combination of the 
various marbles, red sub-base, black-base, green shaft and 
white capital. White marble with trimmings of the other, 
completely covers the walls between the pilasters. On the 
walls opposite the windows and corresponding with them as 
well at the ends, Alabama white marble, beautifully veined, 
has been arranged in matched and figured panels of remark- 
able beauty. The floor is Tennessee marble, gray and light 
red; squares of gray are arranged diagonally with light wide 
red borders. Heavy ornamental electric light brackets further 
adorn the walls. 

"The material used in the entire exterior of the building 
is blue Bedford limestone. This is an even, close grained 
stone, slightly oily and practically impervious to frost and 
moisture. The color is a light grayish blue, which under the 
sun first bleaches to a shade much ligher than when first 
quarried and finally weathers into a pleasing dark gray. For 
building purposes it is not excelled by any stone in the coun- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 313 

try. The material of the court is a light buff brick with white 
terra cotta trimmings." 

The commission further say of the building that it is an 
adaptation of a classical design to modern utilities and con- 
veniences. The exterior is intentionally simple ; extreme care 
was exercised to avoid over-ornamentation and painstaking 
consideration was used in preserving conveniences above 
designed. The general appearance should prove not only 
pleasing for the present, but satisfactory for a long time to 
come. The building is fire-proof, practically indestructable 
and should endure for ages. It follows a style which has never 
grown tiresome and one which has survived to satisfy and 
please through unending and unsuccessful attempts at improve- 
ment and innovation. In unity of composition, simplicity of 
arrangement and combination of design and use, the structure 
is not believed to be surpassed by any modern building. 

This great building, with a frontage of 270 feet and nearly 
as deep accommodates at present within its luxurious interior 
the city and county government, the State courts and the 
various boards of health and other accompaniments of munici- 
pal administration. 

Historically the scheme to erect this court house was con- 
ceived in 1904, when at its October term, the County Court 
passed a resolution memorializing the General Assembly of the 
State to grant authority to the county to issue one million 
dollars of bonds with the proceeds of which a site might be 
procured and the building erected. This authority was granted 
by an act passed on February 2, 1905, authorizing the issuance 
of $1,000,000 of fifty year bonds and containing other powers 
including the right of condemnation of lands for its site. Other 
amendatory acts were passed on April 13, 1905 and on March 
15, 1907, changing the details of the original act in several 
respects and authorizing additional issues of bonds to the 
amount of half a million dollars. The court appointed on 
April 17, 1905, the Building Commission, composed of N. C. 
Perkins, W. G. Allen, John Colbert, John T. Walsh and Levi 
Joy, of which the first named three were then members of the 
County Court. 



314 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

These were all well known Memphis citizens of large 
ability and earnestly set about the performance of their great 
work. N. C. Perkins was elected chairman and Levi Joy, 
secretary. This organization continued until May 13, 1907, 
when John Colbert was elected secretary. 

The site for the construction of the building was obtained 
by purchase and condemnation for the sum of $323,882.78, 
which was reduced by rents received, etc., to $319,361.91. Hale 
and Rogers, architects of the highest skill and character of 
New York City, were employed to design the building and the 
contract for general construction was awarded to the John 
Pierce Company for $792,820.00. The laborious work of con- 
struction will not be narrated here. It is sufficient to say that 
the entire work was finally completed and equipped and the 
building occupied by the public offices and courts by December, 
1909. 

The entire expense of the building amounted to 
$1,588,871.71, of which the ground cost $319,361.91. The con- 
struction, including sculptures and decorating, amounted to 
$1,119,208.84 and the furniture and fixtures $118,406.41, while 
the salaries and incidental expenses were $30,863.50. After 
completing the building the commission had on hand a cash 
balance of $1,924.98. The excess of this cost over the million 
and a half dollars in bonds was made up of premiums and 
accrued interest on the bonds and interest on the deposits of 
the funds in bank during the construction, with some addition- 
al minor items. 

It may be added to this statement that the entire furni- 
ture equipment of the building is made of solid mahogany. 

The new building for the Memphis Central Police Head- 
quarters designed by Mr. G. M. Shaw, a prominent local 
architect, located at the corner of Adams Avenue and Second 
Street, is now completed. 

Built of white Carthage marble and reinforced concrete, 
with fire-proof floors and construction, it will endure as a 
monument to the civic pride of Memphis for the remainder of 
the century. 

Not only is it a creation of masterly architectural design 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 315 

from the standpoint of beauty, but it contains every modern 
equipment which could be devised to make it adequate to the 
needs of the department for all time. 

The first impression one gathers on approaching the build- 
ing is its appearance of strength, durability and simplicity ; 
upon entering the main rotunda however, the observer dis- 
covers there is ample consideration given to the artistic side 
of the construction. The oval rotunda, with its green marble 
columns and mosaic relief work, is indeed a thing of beauty. 
The offices throughout are tastefully decorated and furnished 
complete with the latest design of imperishable furniture of 
metal ; but it is upon entering the courtroom that the crown- 
ing impression is given; finished throughout in English oak, 
with panels of immense size and magnificent arched, ribbed 
and decorated ceiling, it gives one the impression of dignity, 
simplicity and taste. 

In the construction of this building reinforced concrete 
played an important part ; the floors, foundation walls and 
footings are all reinforced concrete ; while the columns and 
girders are of steel. The cell rooms are equipped with tool 
proof steel cells, similar in material and workmanship to those 
in use in the most modern penitentiaries. So hard is the steel 
in these cells that the finest steel saws have no effect upon 
them. 

The arrangement of the building sets a new standard of 
design for central stations, being settled upon after an 
extended trip by the commissioners and architects through- 
out the principal cities of the United States. In addition to 
offices for all the officials there are club and sleeping rooms for 
the policemen ; charity rooms for the unfortunate ; a room for 
the convenience of visiting officials from other cities; a gym- 
nasium ; a shooting gallery in the basement, and a lavish supply 
of shower baths for the inmates of the building. 

Taking into consideration the cost of this building, which 
was less than $308,000, the city has a right to be proud of the 
magnificent structure, which will stand as a monument for 
many years to come. 

Memphis has been the recipient of several noble benefac- 



316 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

tions donated by as many of her sterling citizens who loved and 
were loyal to their city. Among the most valuable of these 
was the founding of the Cossitt Library by the heirs of Mr. 
Frederick H. Cossitt, a philanthropic man from Granby, Con- 
necticut, who adopted Memphis as his home in 1842 and 
remained here engaged in successful business pursuits for 
eighteen years. After his death, September 23, 1887, at New 
York where he was then residing, there was found among his 
private papers an informal memorandum expressing his inten- 
tion to give the city of Memphis the munificent sum of $75,000 
for the purpose of founding the nucleus of a public library. 
This memorandum was not in any sense a will but merely 
expressed an intention. But that intention was held sacred 
by his children and his three daughters, Mrs. Elizabeth R. 
Stokes, Mrs. Helen C. Juilliard and Mrs. Mary C. Dodge, who 
soon after his death took steps to carry it into effect. When a 
board of trustees had been appointed and incorporated as a 
library commission two of these noble women, Mrs. Juilliard 
and Mrs. Dodge, and Mr. Stokes, the husband of the third 
who had died, each gave to the trustees a check for the sum 
of $25,000 for the purpose of carrying into effect the contem- 
plated bequest of their father. 

The city contributed a part of the promenade, a lot 162 
by 300 feet on the bluff south of the United States Custom 
House, with the approbation of the Legislature of the State, as 
a site for the building. The Cossitt Library was incorporated 
by charter, dated April 6, 1888, the Board of Trustees having 
been suggested by Mr. Cossitt prior to his death being as 
follows : Carrington Mason, David P. Hadden, Wm. M. Ran- 
dolph, Samuel P. Read, Wm. M. Farrington, J. T. Fargason, 
J. C. Neely, Napoleon Hill and Elliston Mason. The officers 
of the board elected were Wm. M. Farrington, president ; D. P. 
Hadden, vice-president; S. P. Read, treasurer, and Carrington 
Mason, secretary. 

To the donation given by the Cossitt family there was 
added $1,000 to the building fund by the estate of W. H. Wood 
of Memphis, $75.00 by the Union & Planter's Bank of Mem- 
phis; $500 by E. W. Barnes of New York; $20.00 by Jacob 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 317 

Sehaaf of Memphis; and $550.00 by the Portage Red Sand- 
stone Company of Cleveland, Ohio. 

The declared purposes of the corporation in its charter 
are: 

1 — To establish and maintain a free public library within 
the city of Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee. 

2 — To establish and maintain a free public art-gallery 
within said city. 

3 — To establish and maintain a free public music-hall 
within said city. 

4 — To establish and maintain a free public lecture-room 
within the said city. 

5 — To establish and maintain a free public museum within 
the said city. 

Subsequently to the incorporation the sum of $5,000 was 
bequeathed by the late Mr. Philip R. Bohlen, to be used for 
the purchase of books for the library. The library building 
is a beautiful structure of red sandstone, the style being a 
castellated or American adaptation of Romanesque architecture 
and the building is skillfully arranged for the storage and 
convenient use of books with splendidly ventilated and lighted 
reading-rooms, while the nucleus of a fine museum has been 
installed on the second floor. 

Among the buildings devoted to the public welfare, the 
Goodwyn Institute is notable not only for the munificense of 
the donor who conceived and provided for its construction and 
equipment, but for the great benefit it has proved to be to 
the citizens of Memphis of all classes. 

This institute was formally dedicated to the public use on 
September 30, 1907, the address being delivered by Gen. Luke 
E. Wright, one of the illustrious citizens of Memphis. The 
institute was the gift of Mr. Wm. A. Goodwyn of Nashville, 
Tennessee, formerly a citizen of Memphis, who in his will, 
after making sundry provisions for his family, declared that 
after the death of his wife his property should vest in the 
State of Tennessee, as Trustee, for the uses pertinent to said 
institute. The will provided further that the Governor and 
State Senate should nominate and appoint three commission- 



318 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

ers to be known as Commissioners of Goodwyn Institute, 
their tenure of office to be four years. The commissioners 
were to purchase a suitable lot in Memphis and erect suitable 
buildings thereon, expending part of the funds derived from 
his estate for this purpose and applying the balance for the 
purchase of a library and apparatus and making provision 
for an endowment fund. The whole scheme was to be subject 
to the supervision of the State Legislature at all times and the 
title to the property should be in the name of the State of 
Tennessee. 

It was further provided that a portion of the building 
should be rented for the purpose of providing a maintenance 
revenue for the library and public lectures; another part 
should be devoted to lectures and still another part to library 
purposes, the use of the library to be free to all, as should also 
the lectures which, however should be for instruction and not 
for entertainment merely. It was further provided that no 
part of the building should be used for political gatherings, 
but the lecture hall, when not in use otherwise, might be 
rented for musical concerts, art exhibitions or other purposes 
likely to elevate public morals and taste. The first Board of 
Commissioners were suggested to the Governor by the testator 
and was composed of Samuel P. Read, Bedford M. Estes and 
Rufus Lawrence Coffin. 

Mr. Goodwyn at the conclusion of his will, thus stated his 
reasons and wishes as to the splendid institute which was to 
bear his name : 

"My whole wish and desire as respects this Goodwyn 
Institute is to atford to future youths, who may desire it, infor- 
mation upon such practical and useful subjects as will be ben- 
eficial in life. My reason for locating it in Memphis is, it 
was there I spent much of my life in the happy circle of my 
wife and children. The latter sleep near her borders as I and 
my wife expect to do when we die. Here I made the first 
friends of my early life ; many of them are dead, but their 
descendants, many of them, remain, in Memphis and were play- 
mates of my children, and to them or their descendants I 
hope this may be of great benefit. This legacy for the benefit 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 319 

of my old home has long been thought of by myself and wife, 
and took shape in a will written by me in November, 1887 and 
now repeated. It became necessary to write this will on 
account of necessary changes and to destroy that of 1887. And 
I mention this fact in order that my old friends at Memphis 
may know that I have long cherished this idea." 

The institute as finally constructed, is on the southwest 
corner of Madison Avenue and Third Street in Memphis. The 
lot was purchased on July 21, 1903 for $75,000. The building 
fronts on Madison Avenue and is seventy-five feet wide and 
one hundred and seventeen feet deep. It is a modern, fire-proof 
construction of steel, stone, brick and terra cotta, seven stories 
high with a basement of 5,768 square feet. The auditorium or 
lecture hall occupies the second and third floors, and will seat 
nearly one thousand people. The library occupies the seventh 
floor, while the basement, first, fourth, fifth and sixth floors 
are used for different business offices and other rental pur- 
poses. The cost of the building and equipment was 
more than $300,000. The exterior construction is of 
stone up to the second floor and above that of "Harvard 
Gate Brick" being of the same type as that first used at Har- 
vard University. The brick work makes an artistic mosaic 
appearing old and weather-stained, which effect is secured by 
the varied colorings of the bricks. The trimmings are of white 
terra cotta. The building possesses a spacious lobby forty-five 
feet wide, fifty feet deep and fifty feet high, adorned with 
beautifully tiled floors, lofty pillars, wide marble steps and 
artistic marble newels. The institute has been self-sustain- 
ing from the beginning and has paid all expenses for lectures, 
besides providing for the purchase of necessary books for the 
splendid library which, by the order of the trustees, is limited 
to the purposes of a reference library only. The trustees at 
present are Messrs. S. P. Read, John R. Pepper and J. M. 
Goodbar and the superintendent is Mr. C. C. Ogilvie, all of 
Memphis. One of the principle and most benificent features 
of the institute are the lectures and lecture recitals which 
"cover a wide range of subjects and relate to art, science, 
literature, music, travel, history, biography, philosophy, soci- 



320 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

ology, economics, education, commercial, municipal and gov- 
ernmental affairs. The highest grade of lecturers obtainable 
in the land are annually secured for these purposes, and, it 
has been remarked, afford interest, amusement and instruction 
for a more varied class of citizens than seem to attend upon 
other benefactions in the city. 

The city has a new Union Station on Calhoun Street, 
completed and opened to traffic April 1, 1912. It is owned 
and operated by five railroads, namely, the Southern Railway 
Company, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, the 
St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway Company, the 
Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway and the St. 
Louis, Southwestern Railway Company. 

It was at first planned to have all the trunk lines center- 
ing at Memphis construct and occupy one building at the 
corner of Main and Calhoun Streets, but differences arose 
among the several companies, growing out of the nature of 
the transportation service and that plan fell through, the other 
railroad systems undertaking to build independently a station 
at Main and Calhoun Streets. The Memphis Union Station 
Company, composed of the above five mentioned railroads, was 
organized and incorporated on the 30th of September, 1909, 
and the work of construction on the present station was begun 
April 1, 1910. Its incorporators and the first board of direct- 
ors were M. H. Smith, Fairfax Harrison, J. "W. Thomas, Jr., 
C. W. Nelson and J. L. Lancaster. 

The new depot of the INIemphis Union Station Company, 
which cost something like $3,000,000, was built on Calhoun 
Avenue and Fourth Street, about three blocks east of Main 
Street. The building is of gray stone, the architecture pre- 
senting old colonial lines, and is three stories in height. 
Grand stairway approaches of stone spring from the avenue 
to the general entrance on the second floor, this entrance being 
embellished with six stone columns about fifty feet in height. 
The waiting room for wlitie passengers is in the center of the 
building on the second floor and is one hundred feet by fifty- 
one feet eight inches in dimensions. The colored waiting-room, 
more than half as large, is to the east of the general waiting- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 321 

room, while the ladies' waiting-room is on the west side of it 
and surrounded by the dining-room, lunch-room and other 
arrangements for personal comfort. 

Over the general waiting-room the ceiling springs to a 
height of forty-six feet and is exquisitely ornamented with 
buff terra cotta, in which are myriads of artistic electric lights 
arranged in rosettes. The wainscoting is finished in terra 
cotta, with a solid marble base extending around the entire 
room and the floor is of vari-colored marble tiling in beautiful 
natural tints. The woodwork is mahogany on the second floor 
and quarter-sawed oak on the ground floor. The terra cotta 
finish is something new in depot construction, and the coloring 
is soft and restful to the eyes. 

The whole arrangement of the station building from 
ground-floor to attic is very convenient, adding vastly to the 
comfort of the traveling public. In the rear of the main build- 
ing on the second floor is a grand concourse, seventy-five by 
two hundred forty feet in dimensions, from which passengers 
enter trains, twenty tracks being provided for this service. 
The concourse may also be used for a promenade, a thing 
much needed in all large passenger stations, but rarely pro- 
vided. The station has its own light, heat and water plant, the 
water being derived from artesian well three hundred feet 
deep. The architect of the station was J. A. Galvin and chief 
engineer, J. Weiness. 

Most extensive provisions have been made for the care of 
baggage and express, numerous elevators being provided for 
lifting it from the ground to the second floor. Beside the rooms 
on the second floor and the baggage and express rooms on the 
ground floor, the latter floor is provided with numerous capa- 
cious apartments for special purposes necessary to a complete 
Union Station, such as a drug-store, barber shop, billiard-room 
mail-room and rest-room for employes, besides numerous smaller 
quarters for other purposes. The upper floor is taken up almost 
exclusively with offices and file-rooms. It is conceded that no 
more commodious, comfortable or handsome Union Station can 
be found in the entire South and it is hoped that it may be sur- 



322 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

passed by the other Union Station nearby, now about to be 
put under construction. 

In January, 1877, the State of Tennessee passed an Act 
ceding to the United States for the purpose of having erected 
thereon a United States Custom House, a large lot of land on 
the promenade or bluff overhanging the Mississippi River, 
having a frontage on the west line of Front Street of three 
hundred sixty-four and one-fourth feet, extending from the 
north line of the first alley south of Madison Street to the 
south line of the first alley north of Madison Street and 
extending thence westward between parallel lines three hun- 
dred feet. 

On this lot was erected a stone building, the basement 
being of pink granite and the superstructure of white Tennes- 
see marble and large enough to accommodate all the offices of 
the United States government, including a post-office. Custom's 
offices, the United States court-rooms, inspectors' offices, etc. 
The architecture is of modified Italian design and the finish is 
of cherry. The floors of the public parts of the building are 
tesselated. The windows are of heavy plate glass, the stair- 
ways of iron, with slabs of slate. The building is thoroughly 
fire-proof and has an independent sewer system. The grounds 
surrounding the building are adorned with lawns and trees 
and are supported with a heavy retaining wall constructed of 
great blocks of stone. 

The original cost of the building was approximately 
$500,000, but it has been recently greatly enlarged on the west 
side, as the demands of the Government service in Memphis 
have quickly outgrown the structure first devised and it was 
found imperatively necessary to nearly double the size of the 
building. 



w 



CHAPTER XV 

Parks and Promenades. 

'HEN the proprietors of Memphis conceived the plan of 
the infant city on January 6, 1819, as mentioned in the 
agreement of that date, as recorded in the Register's 
office, and caused William Lawrence to prepare a plan and 
map of the town, they also had a vision. These shrewd men 
foresaw that the little town which they had planted would at 
some future day become a great metropolis in the nation and 
emphatically declared that it would rival its ancient namesake 
on the Nile in beauty and grandeur. They also foresaw that 
reservation must be made in advance for the civic adornment 
of the future queen city so that a landscape unsurpassed in the 
great southwest should be rescued from commercial obstacles 
on the river front and be reserved forever to the dwellers in 
this great metropolis of their dream. So they made generaus 
provision, not only for the future commercial convenience of 
its inhabitants, but for their comfort and enjoyment as well. 

Hence on this plan and map, as will be seen on inspection, 
they provided not only four handsome squares called Auction, 
Market Exchange and Court Squares, but they provided also 
a grand promenade or river-front park from Jackson Avenue 
to Union Avenue, a distance of 4,197 feet, and extended it east 
and west so as to embrace all the land between the west line 
of Front Street, then Mississippi Row, and the then edge of the 
bluff overhanging the river, except a roadway along the edge, 
the dedicated promenade being 572 feet wide at the south end 
and 180 feet at the north end of the plat and containing some- 
thing like thirty-six acres. They also dedicated the streets 
and alleys of the new town and a splendid landing extending 



324 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

along the Mississippi and Wolf River front, from Jackson 
Street north to Bayou Gayoso and from the then water's edge, 
as shown on the map, eastward to Chickasaw Street, the nor- 
thern extension of Mississippi Row. And they were so partic- 
ular in preserving these civic dedications for park and prome- 
nade purposes to the future people of Memphis that on Sep- 
tember 18, 1828, they executed a carefully drawn deed of con- 
firmation, which is here given in full. 

"The undersigned proprietors of the land on which the 
town of Memphis has been laid off, having been informed that 
doubts have arisen in relation to their original intention con- 
cerning the same, for the purpose of removing such doubts, 
do hereby make known and declare the following as their 
original and unequivocal designs and intentions in relation 
therto : 

"First. All the ground laid off in said town as streets 
or alleys, we do say that it was always our intention that the 
same should forever remain as public streets and alleys, sub- 
ject to the same rules and regulations as all streets and alleys 
in towns or cities, forever obligating ourselves, our heirs, or 
assigns, and by these presents, we do bind ourselves, our heirs, 
etc., that the above streets and alleys shall continue eastwardly 
as far as lots are laid off^ and the streets, though not the alleys, as 
far east as Bayou Gayoso, agreeably to the last survey and sale. 

"Second. In relation to the ground laid off in said town 
as public squares, viz : Court, Exchange, Market and Auction 
Squares, it was the intention of the proprietors that they should 
forever remain as public grounds, not subject to private appro- 
priation, but public uses only, according to the import of the 
above expressions. Court, Exchange, Market and Auction 
Squares. 

"Third. In relation to the piece of ground laid off and 
called the 'Promenade,' said proprietors say that it was their 
original intention, is now, and forever will be, that the same 
should be public ground for such use only as the word imports, 
to which heretofore, by their acts, for that purpose it was con- 
ceived, all right was relinquished for themselves, their heirs, 
etc., and it is hereby expressly declared, in conformity with 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 325 

such intention, that we, for ourselves, heirs and assigns, for- 
ever relinquish all claims to the same piece of ground called 
the "Promenade," for the purpose above mentioned. But 
nothing herein contained as to the promenade shall bar the 
town from authorizing one or more ferries to be kept by the 
proprietors, their heirs or assigns, opposite said promenade and 
the mouth of any of the cross streets on Mississippi Row. 

"Fourth. In relation to the ground lying between the 
western boundary of the lots from No. 1 to 24 inclusive, and 
the same line continued in a direct course to the south bank of 
the Bayou Gayoso and eastern margin of Wolf and Mississippi 
Rivers, and between Jackson Street extended to the river and 
the said south bank of the bayou, it was the original intention 
of the proprietors that there should, on said ground, forever be 
a landing or landings for public purposes of navigation or 
trade, and that the same should be forever enjoyed for these 
purposes, obligatory on ourselves, heirs and assigns ; but all 
other rights not inconsistent with the above public rights inci- 
dent to the soil, it never was the intention of the proprietors to 
part with, such as keeping a ferry or ferries on any of the 
public ground, an exclusive right which they always held 
sacred, and never intend to part with in whole or in part." 

The two succeeding sections numbered 5 and 6, relate to a 
gift to the city of a block at northwest corner of Poplar and 
Third Streets, theretofore used for a burying ground, which 
was to be discontinued, and the dedication of another site for 
a burying ground on what was known then as Second Bayou, 
since known as Winchester Cemetery. 

This conveyance was dated September 18, 1828, and was 
signed by John Overton, John C. McLemore, George Winches- 
ter and William Winchester, surviving owner, by M. B. Win- 
chester, attorney in fact. 

This deed of dedication and confirmation apparently 
vested in the people of Memphis the perpetual right to the 
use and enjoyment of the squares and promenade as far as legal 
skill and the agency of human language could accomplish the 
purpose of the founders. But as the town and later, the city, 
grew, human ingenuity was employed successfully to undo 



326 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the plans of those wise promoters of civic beauty and enjoy- 
ment and to rob the luckless people of Memphis of their birth- 
right. And these schemes always came in the guise of an 
alleged blessing. 

In 1844, as we have seen above, the city government con- 
veyed to the United States the splendid navy-yard property, 
embracing for two blocks the north end of the original prom- 
enade. This cession covered all the land between Market and 
Auction Streets and from Chickasaw Street to the river. But 
the navy yard was receded by the United States to Memphis 
in 1853. 

In 1847 the city made a lease to W. A. Bickford, of 
Exchange Square, for 99 years, the consideration being $10,000 
of city bonds and provision for a city hall and offices during 
that period in the building to be erected thereon. This lease 
has yet 34 years to run. 

Before this date the city had extended the public landing 
from its original location above Jackson Street steadily down 
the river front, by cutting away the face of the bluff and thus 
reducing the public promenade one-half or more from Jackson 
Street ultimately to Union Street. This appropriation of the 
west part of the promenade, however, though reducing greatly 
the privileges of the people as to the extent of their splendid 
pleasure grounds, yet cannot be assailed as a mistaken exercise 
of clear business judgment, as the traffic privileges thus given 
to steamboats and river commerce undoubtedly made IMemphis 
what it became before the railroads came to supplant the 
steamboats. 

In 1876 the city and state ceded to the United States as a 
site for a Custom House that section of the bluff promenade 
fronting the western terminus of Madison Street and embrac- 
ing a lot 3641/4 by 300 feet, which was also originally part of 
the ground dedicated by the founders of Memphis. 

Later, in 1888, the city donated a lot 162 by 300 feet 
adjoining the Custom House grounds on the south and extend- 
ing to Monroe Street for the use of the Cossitt Library. This 
was a splendidly endowed institution founded by the generosity 
of Mr. Frederick H. Cossitt, a former citizen of Memphis. As 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 327 

the surrounding grounds of both the Custom House and Library 
have been handsomely parked and opened to the people, the 
loss is not great to the public. 

At a later period still, the city appropriated a part of the 
promenade lying between Union and Monroe Streets for the 
erection of a central fire-station. 

The city also, on October 1, 1881, leased for 25 years to 
the L. & N. Railroad Co., the north half of Auction Square, 
for $500 per annum, the railroad company undertaking to 
defend itself against all efforts to set aside the lease by the 
public without cost to the city. 

Besides granting track privileges, over the whole length 
of the levee embraced in the promenade limits, to several rail- 
roads, the city on April 26, 1881, leased to the Memphis, 
Paducah & Northern Railroad Company for 55 years that part 
of the public promenade between Poplar and Market Streets 
and Front and Promenade Streets for an annual rental of $500, 
and on which grounds are now located the depot buildings 
used by the Illinois Central Railroad. 

So also on August 3, 1899, the city leased to the Choctaw, 
Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad Co., for $1500 per annum, that part 
of the public promenade from Washington to Jefferson Streets 
and between Front Street and the line of the Illinois Central 
Railroad right-of-way, for a period of 50 years to be used for 
depots, yards, etc. 

These contracts are set out here in brief abstract form for 
the purpose of illustrating the extent of the inroads made 
thus far upon the original splendid park and promenade sys- 
tem of the founders of Memphis by the succeeding city gov- 
ernments. The courts have in some instances sustained the 
rights of the city to thus lease these grounds and the present 
lessees feel no uneasiness about their right to retain the leases 
and licenses to occupy the ground and have erected splendid 
improvements thereon in some cases. 

However, the Park Commissioners have rescued such bits 
as are still left of the once magnificent domain and have taken 
charge of one-half of Auction and all of Market and Court 
Squares and that part of the promenade still unused, which 



3i28 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

lies south of Jefferson Avenue and have created out of the 
latter beautiful Confederate Park, and the little plat called 
Chickasaw Park, adjoining the engine house between Monroe 
and Union Avenues. The people may yet by alert action, come 
into their own again at the termination of these leases. 

But after this grewsome review of the disintegration of 
the beautiful park and promenade system of our founders and 
the repeated sacrifice of the civic pride and comfort of the 
people to the utilities of commerce, we are now about to tell 
of a brighter day for Memphis and her splendid park system. 
On March 31, 1899, the Legislature of Tennessee passed an 
act amending the Taxing District Act of 1879 so as to empower 
cities organized under said act to acquire, improve and main- 
tain parks for the benefit of the public, and also authorizing 
such taxing districts or cities to establish by ordinance a park 
commission composed of three members to be elected by the 
Legislative Council. By the terms of the act the commissioners 
were to "have the entire control of the' parks, park-lands and 
parkways acquired by such Taxing District or city under the 
provisions of this act. It shall be their duty to direct the lay- 
ing out, improvement and maintenance of said parks." They 
were also empowered to open or close up any streets, alleys 
or roadways running across such park or parkland, and this 
power was to extend as well without as within the limits of 
such city. 

Under this act Judge L. B. McFarland, John R. Godwin 
and Robert Galloway were appointed the first Board of Park 
Commissioners. These gentlemen organized the Board in Sep- 
tember, 1900, by electing L. B. McFarland, chairman, and on 
November 14 of the following year they had succeeded in 
floating $250,000 of four per cent bonds with which to begin 
the acquisition of the beautiful grounds now composing the 
Memphis Park system. 

When the board was organized there came under its con- 
trol by direction of the city government certain remnants left 
from the original park system of the founders of Memphis, as 
well as the several donations mentioned below, the whole con- 
stituting the following properties: 




, ifSffW'^aarui aEraUY' 



/ A TTf"^'^^^^^ 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 329 

Acres 

Market Square, now called Brinkley Square 1 

Auction Square, Remnant i/^ 

Court Square 21/^ 

Confederate Park, part of Promenade 5 

Chickasaw Park, part of Promenade 1% 

The tracts donated or acquired by the city since the 
original dedication by the founders of Memphis, were : 

Acres 

Old Hospital ground, now Forrest Park 10 

Gaston Park, donated by John Gaston 5 

Bickford Park, donated by W. A. Bickford 21/2 

Annesdale Park, donated by R. Brinkley Snowden 1 

Belvidere Park 1-6 

Forrest Park was originally the ground of the old Mem- 
phis City Hospital and was kindly donated by the city for 
park purposes at the instance of the Confederate Historical 
Association of Memphis, which desired to and subsequently 
did erect a splendid bronze monument to General Nathan Bed- 
ford Forrest, costing $30,000, on the grounds when the park 
had been laid out. The suggestion to obtain from the city this 
ground for a park, to be called Forrest Park, first came from 
Captain R. J. Black of the Historical Association. 

With this nucleus the Park Commissioners began with 
great enthusiasm to plan for the acquisition of far larger bodies 
of beautiful lands in the suburbs of Memphis in order to com- 
plete a system of parks and parkways which for beauty and 
artistic design is probably surpassed by only three other sys- 
tems in the United States and very slightly, if at all, by these. 

The first purchase of the Park Commissioners was a tract 
of 335 acres then known as Lea's Woods, which lies on the 
east limits of the city at the northwestern intersection of 
Poplar Boulevard and Trezevant Avenue, now the Parkway. 
This tract, an exquisite greenery, slightly broken and with 
several running streams, was purchased for $110,000, or about 
$330 per acre on November 14, 1901. There was a competition 
organized by a city newspaper, the Evening Scimitar, for the 
purpose of selecting a name for the new park, which finally 



3'30 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

resulted in giving it the name of Overton Park, in honor of 
Judge Overton, one of the founders of Memphis. 

The Park Commissioners also acquired a tract of 367 acres 
of land adjoining the city limits on the south and fronting on 
the IMississippi River on a high bluff overhanging the water. 
Soon after the County of Shelby donated 60 acres more, the 
two tracts constituting a body of land with a river-front 50 or 
60 feet high, and about 4800 feet in length, called Riverside 
Park. This tract is more broken than Overton Park and inter- 
sected with deep dells, affording sites for winding driveways 
of exquisite beauty. In some respects it surpasses Overton 
Park in natural beauty and scenic effect, besides containing 
nearly 100 acres, more of land, the whole body covering 427 
acres. 

The next enterprise of the Park Commissioners was to 
obtain by purchase and condemnation a magnificent parkway 
varying from 100 to 250 feet in width and containing 11.11 
miles of roadway and 182.23 acres of land. Including the 
double drives there are in this parkway 19.35 miles of road- 
way. The embellishment of the parkway, which encircles the 
entire city and connects Overton and Riverside Parks, is 
exquisite in character, the highest effects of landscape archi- 
tecture having been brought to bear in its construction, and 
it is believed that no city in our nation can surpass it in com- 
fort and scenic beauty as a pleasure drive of that length. 

The commissioners now have completed negotiations with 
the owners for the purchase of a new park-site to be known as 
DeSoto Park, in honor of the daring Spanish soldier who first 
saw the Mississippi River at the present site of the city of 
Memphis and whose discovery has been treated fully in the 
initial pages of this history. This tract embraces some thirteen 
acres of land and includes Chisca's Mound or fortress, from 
which that doughty Indian chief hurled defiance at the Spanish 
invaders, and another or smaller mound, probably of more 
recent construction. 

The opening of this historic spot as a public park will 
prove a notable achievement for Memphis, through her present 
park commissioners Robert Galloway, J. T. Willingham and 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 331 

B. F. Turner and it is contemplated making the new park a 
place worthy of its historic importance and ultimately it is 
believed that a magnificent bronze monument will be erected 
to the wonderful Spaniard who first brought the great bluff 
on which Memphis stands under the searchlight of history. 

It is believed that no rivals can be found among the parks 
of the United States to contest with Overton and Riverside in 
elements of natural beauty. Throughout a large part of Over- 
ton Park nature has been left undisturbed, except by minute 
footpaths, to develop its trees, plants, and shrubs and its infin- 
ite wild flowers, each after its own kind. More than thirty 
kinds of native timber are to be found here. Rare wild plants, 
vines, grasses and flowers spring up in bewildering luxuriance 
and infinite variety to attract the scientist and lover of nature 
and where children can roam next to Mother Earth and her 
own immediate handiwork, as in the days of our first parents. 
It has been observed that plants and wild flowers, which had 
long since disappeared from the environs of the city, have 
reappeared in lavish abundance and brought with them num- 
berless new species. It is in spring and summer a paradise for 
the botanist. Trees that were here when DeSoto came rear 
their mighty heads at intervals, and one buried in the green 
wilderness can discern no evidence that despoiling civilization 
exists anywhere near. 

This park of 335 acres is nearly an equilateral parallelo- 
gram, its western side being embellished with driveways, lakes, 
flower-beds, lawns and pavilions, with a splendid zoological 
garden in the forest at the northwest corner. This zoo eon- 
tains 405 selected animals, birds and reptiles installed with 
their buildings, dens, etc., at a cost of $31,726.58. 

Riverside Park differs materially from Overton in several 
respects. It fronts about 4,800 feet along the high bluff over- 
hanging the Mississippi River, giving a water view of exquisite 
beauty, the mighty river with its hazy veil unfolding for miles 
to the enchanted eye. This tract of land containing 427 acres, 
is broken into deep, winding dells at frequent intervals, heavily 
wooded throughout, with wide expanses of almost level 
plateaus along the river bank, here more than 60 feet high, 



332 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

and between the dells to the eastward. These high levels have 
been exquisitely improved with plants, shrubs and flowers, and 
from them the white driveways dip at intervals into and thread 
the shady dells, affording natural scenery of wierd and strange 
beauty. This park is off of the highways of travel and over- 
looks the ever silent river, so majestic in its grandeur as to 
evoke from its awed Spanish discoverers the impressive name 
of Rio Espiritu Santo, or River of the Holy Spirit. No more 
restful place of retreat for the city-tired man or woman can 
be imagined than quiet, beautiful Riverside, where the flowers 
bloom and the mocking birds sing and nature seems '4n silent 
contemplation to adore" one of the mightiest handiworks of 
the Creator, the great inland river of America. 

RIVERSIDE PARK. 

By tawny tide. 

At Riverside, 

We walk and dream and softly bide. 

While far below. 

Deep, stately, slow. 

The yellow waters swirl and flow. 

Around us nods 

The golden-rods 

And purple in its feathery bloom. 

The giant grass, 

On stems of brass, 

Like banners, flaunts its glossy plume. 

The sumac burns 

In leavy urns 

Fired by the torch of Autumn's sun; 

And by the woods 

Its scarlet hoods 

Tell of the summer's battle won. 

In Riverside, 
At eventide, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 333 

We wander through the deep, brown dells, 

Where leaves unfold, 

In tints of gold. 

Sun-painted groups of fronded bells. 

About the balks 

Of tangled walks 

The autumn creeper twines its spray, 

And nestling there, 

In tiny lair, 

The sylvan locust trills its lay. 

Far o'er the dell 

The broad hills swell 

And giant poplars crown their crests, 

Where mocking-birds, 

In wondrous words, 

Talk love to mates in swinging nests. 

High on the vine 

The muscadine 

Suspends its globes of honied wine. 

And festooned grapes 

In purpling shapes, 

About the massive oaks entwine. 

Oh dells, deep, wide, 

At Riverside, 

We would in thy sweet peace abide, 

Far from the throngs. 

The rush, the wrongs, 

That stifle life on urban tide. 

For 'mid thy peace, 

The pulses cease 

To beat the fevered life's quick blow. 

And love and truth 

Renew their youth 

Beneath the autumn afterglow. 



334 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

The smaller of the town parks are scarcely less beautiful 
than their larger sisters, especially Forrest Park, where the 
grand equestrian statue of the South 's mightiest cavalry leader, 
Nathan Bedford Forrest, towers amidst the trees. 

All these splendid pleasure grounds are the creations of the 
distinguished landscape architect and scenic artist, George E. 
Kessler, of Kansas City, Missouri, than whom no one has done 
more to beautify Memphis. In little Confederate Park on the 
riverfront north of the Custom House, a touch of wartime is 
added in the monster but now obsolete cannon and mortars, 
relics of the great strife between the States. These guns point 
over the waters as they did fifty years ago, but the birds are 
nesting and the spiders are weaving their webs in the black 
cavities whence issued at that time sounds transcending thun- 
der and missiles of awful destruction. 

Beside these parks there are other small plats of ground 
ranging from five acres down to one or less. Among these are 
Gaston Park, the donation of John Gaston, long a citizen of 
Memphis, and holding her in grateful remembrance ; Bickford 
Park, of two and one-half acres, generous donation of W. A. 
Bickford; Chickasaw Park of one and three-fourth acres; 
Annesdale, Belvidere and Astor Parks, all of them oases in the 
deserts of buildings and homes, and jewels in the order of 
park construction. 

It has been proposed by Mrs. S. H. Brooks, widow of the 
late S. H. Brooks, prominent merchant of Memphis, to build 
in Overton Park a Memorial Art Gallery to the memory of her 
husband, to cost $100,000. The proposal has been accepted by 
the Park Commission and the site designated. This will per- 
haps be the beginning of the great scheme for an Art Museum 
for Memphis planned by the late Carl Gutherz. 

The several boards of park commissioners, since the first 
one was organized in September, 1900, have been by years, as 
follows : 

1901 : — L. B. McFarland, chairman, J. R. Godwin, Robert 
Galloway. 1902 : — L. B. McFarland, chairman, John R. God- 
win, Robert Galloway. 1903: — Robert Galloway, chairman, L. 
B. McFarland, John R. Godwin. 1904: — Robert Galloway, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 335 

chairman, L. B. McFarland, John K. Godwin. 1905: — John R. 
Godwin, chairman, L. B. McFarland, Robert Galloway. 1906 :— 
John R. Godwin, chairman, Robert Galloway, L. B. McFarland. 
1907: — Robert Galloway, chairman, J. T. Willingham, John R. 
Godwin. 1908 :— Robert Galloway, chairman, J. T. Willingham, 
John R. Godwin. 1909: — Robt. Galloway, chairman, J. T, Wil- 
lingham, Dr. B. F. Turner. 1910 :— Robert Galloway, chairman, 
J. T. Willinj^ham, Dr. B. F. Turner. 1911 :— Robert Galloway, 
chairman, J. T. Willingham, Dr. B. F. Turner. 1912:— Robert 
Galloway, chairman, J. T. Willingham, iJr. ii. F. Turner. 



CHAPTER XVI 



Military History 

^i^Y'HE military history of Memphis presents some quite 
ill graphic as well as tragic features, as it was a sort of 
^■^ storm center during the War Between the States. The 
early military career of the city began with the Mexican "War, 
1846. The various military operations which took place on 
the Chickasaw Bluffs before the beginning of the Nineteenth 
Century, under DeSoto, Bienville, Gayoso, Captain Guion and 
others are given fully in the preliminary chapters of this work. 

When the Mexican War broke out in 1846 the fires of 
patriotism were fiercely lighted in the little city on the bluffs 
and six military companies were organized here for service in 
that conflict but only three were accepted and went to Mexico. 
These were the Gaines Guards under Captain M. B. Cook ; the 
Memphis Rifle Guards under Captain E. F. Ruth and the Eagle 
Guards under Captain W. N. Porter. The two first named 
companies became part of the Second Tennessee Infantry, the 
Rifle Guards, as Company D, and the Gaines Guards as Com- 
pany E. The Eagle Guards was organized as a cavalry com- 
pany. The two infantry companies were engaged at Monterey 
and Vera Cruz and at Cerro Gordo, April 18, 1847, lost several 
men, the Rifle Guards losing their first lieutenant, F. B. Nelson 
and Private C. A. Sampson killed and Ben 'Haver, Isaiah Pres- 
cott and C. C. Ross, wounded. The Gaines Guards lost Lieut. 
C. G. Hill, Sergeant A. L. Bynum, J. J. Gunter, E. Y. Robinson 
and R. L. Bohannon, killed, and Burton Plunkett, Abram Greg- 
ory, John Gregory and John P. Isler, wounded. 

Between 1852 and 1859 there were nine military companies 
organized, several of which subsequently became famous in the 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 337 

Civil War. These companies were the Clay Guards, Captain 
Charles M. Carroll, 1852 ; the "Washington Rifles, Captain Ring- 
wald, 1853 ; Young American Invincibles, Captain S. H. Whit- 
sitt, 1855 ; the Steuben Artillery, Captain William Miller, 1858 ; 
Memphis Light Guards, Captain Jones Gennette, 1859 ; Jackson 
Guards, Captain M. McGeveney, Jr., 1859; Harris Zouave 
Cadets, Captain Shenvin, 1859; Memphis Southern Guards, 
Captain James W. Hambleton, 1859 ; and a cavalry company, 
the Memphis Light Dragoons, Captain T. H. Logwood, char- 
tered by the Legislature in 1860. Nearly all of these organiza- 
tions which survived became noted companies in famous Mem- 
phis regiments during the War Between the States. 

After the establishment of the Confederate States in Feb- 
ruary, 1861, the city became rapidly a great military camp. 
The tramp of armed men was heard on the streets and the 
people, intensely Southern and quickly imbued with the war 
spirit then burning fiercely throughout the whole South, sprang 
to arms almost as one man. No city of its size, then containing 
only 22,600 population, white and black, furnished so large 
a proportion of the adult male inhabitants to the armies of the 
South. More than fifty companies of infantry, cavalry and 
artillery were enlisted, the minimum number for each company 
being eighty-three and the maximum one hundred and three. 
The ladies also caught the spirit of the hour and at a meet- 
ing by resolution declared to her warlike sons: "Though we 
cannot bear arms, yet our hearts are with you and our hands 
are at your service to make clothing, flags or anything that a 
patriotic woman can do for Southern men and Southern inde- 
pendence." The Board of Mayor and Aldermen at the same 
time voted $59,000 "for the defense and the protection of the 
city of Memphis." 

It would be interesting if the historian could give all of 
the details of this period of excitement and preparation for 
war in the little city on the Mississippi River, but that would 
require a space not warranted in the chapter on the Military 
History of Memphis. As far as possible the military organiza- 
tions, regiments, battalions, companies and batteries will be 
here compiled, the names of many of the companies being indi- 



338 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

cative of the spirit of young' Memphis men of 1861, though 
oftentimes fantastic. Among the infantry companies of that 
day which sprang into being in response to the first ominous 
gun fired at Fort Sumter on May 12, 1861, were the Shelby 
Grays, the Bluff City Grays, the Crockett Rangers, the Jeff 
Davis Invincibles, the Garibaldi Guards, the Memphis Marine 
Guards and the Memphis Light Dragoons. Some of the old 
companies were the Memphis Southern Guards, the Harris 
Zouave Cadets, the Washington Rifles, the Jackson Guards and 
the Memphis Light Guards of infantry, and the Steuben artil- 
lery, which were at once sworn into service. Following these 
were the Greenwood Rangers, Tennessee Mounted Rifles, Shelby 
Mounted Rifles, Hickory Rifles, Tennessee Guards, Tennessee 
Star Grays, Emerald Guards, Carroll Guards, May's Dragoons, 
The Beauregards, and Capt. W. D. Pickett's Sappers and Min- 
ers. 

Memphis furnished the Confederate service several regi- 
ments and representative companies to several other regiments 
in that service. Indeed, almost her entire voting population 
joined the ranks and boys of from fifteen to men of fifty-five 
were common in the lines. Those regiments made up in whole 
or in part of Memphis men were chiefly the Second, Fourth, 
Ninth, Fifteenth, Twenty-first and One Hundred Fifty-fourth 
Tennessee Infantry and two companies of the Seventh Tennes- 
see Cavalry and one company of McDonald's battalion of 
Forrest's old regiment. A roster of the Memphis companies in 
these regiments, as complete as possible to make it at this date, 
follows : 

Second Tennessee — Colonel Knox Walker. Company A, 
Capt. F. A. Strocky. Company B, Capt. W. B. Triplett. Com- 
pany C, Capt. Chas. E. Cossitt. Company D, Capt. E. Marshall. 
Company E, Capt. John Wilkerson and E. C. Porter. Company 
F, Capt. Sam Vance. Company G, Capts. J. Welby Armstrong 
and R. A. Hart. Company H, Capt. R. E. Chew. 

Fourth Tennessee — Lieutenant Colonel Luke W. Finlay. 
Company A, Shelby Grays, Capt. James Somerville. Company 
H, Tennessee Guards, Capt. B. F. White. 

Ninth Tennessee Regiment — Company I, Capt. Hal Rogers. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 339 

Fifteenth Tennessee — Colonel Charles M. Carroll. Company 
A, Capt. A. C. Ketehum. Company B, Capt. Frank Rice. Com- 
pany C, Capt. Charles E. Rose. Company D, Capt. Ed. S. Pick- 
ett. Company E, Young Guards, Capt. John P. Cameron, later 
in 3rd Confed. Company F, Capt. E. M. Cleary. Company G, 
Capt. 'Carroll. Company H, Capt. Jos. Keller. Company I, 
Washington Rifles, Capt. Nick Frick. 

Ttventy-First Tennessee — Colonel Ed. Pickett, Jr. Consoli- 
dated with Second Tennessee to constitute Fifth Confederate, as 
follows : — 

Fifth Confederate — Major R. J. Person. Company A, Capt. 
Thomas Stokes. Company B, Capt. Chas. W. Frayser. Com- 
pany C, Capt. W. H. Brown. Company D, Capt. L. D. Green- 
law. Company E, Capt. J. H. Beard. Company F, Capt. John 
Fitzgerald. Company G, Capt. W. H. Carvell. Company H, 
Capt. A. A. Cox. 

One Hundred Fifty-Fourth — Colonel Preston Smith. Com- 
pany A, Light Guards, Capt. Jones Gennette. Company B, 
Bluff City Grays, Capt. J. H. Edmondson. Company C, Hick- 
ory Rifles, Capt. J. D. Martin. Company D, Southern Guards, 
Capt. J. W. Hambleton. Company D, (2nd), Beauregard's, 
Capt. Moreland. Company E, Harris Zouave Cadets, Capt. 
Sterling Fowlkes. Company F, Crockett Rangers, Capt. M. 
Patrick. Company I, Maynard Rifles, Capt. E. A. Cole. 

Cavalry : 

Seventh Tennessee Cavalry — Company A, Memphis Light 
Dragoons, Capt. T. H. Logwood. Company C, Shelby Light 
Dragoons, Capt. S. P. Bassett. Company D, (Battalion) Ten- 
nessee Mounted Rifles, Capt. Josiah White. 

Forrest's Old Regiment — Colonel N. B. Forrest. Company 
C, Forrest Rangers, Capt. Charles May. 

Artillery — Bankhead's Battery, Capt. Smith P. Bankhead, 
Capt. W. Y. C. Humes, Capt. J. C. McDavitt. Steuben Artil- 
lery, Capt. Wm. Miller, Capt. W. H. Jackson, Capt. W. W. 
Carnes, Capt. Louis G. Marshall. Rice's Battery, Capt. T. W. 
Rice, Lieut. B. F. Haller, Lieut. D. C. Jones. 

It is not the intention of the editor, nor would it be practi- 



340 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

cable to follow and narrate the careers of these companies and 
regiments through the Civil "War. To do so would be practi- 
cally to write the history of the Army of Tennessee and Forrest 
Cavalry. It is sufficient to say that these commands each and 
all acquitted themselves gloriously on almost every battle-field 
of the West, and they were cut down by hundreds until only 
the merest fragments remained to reach home at the close of 
the great conflict. Many of them still survive, 1912, battle- 
scarred and bent with age, but still men of heroic mould and 
unquenchable love of country. Only the military operations 
and engagements which have a strictly local coloring will be 
recorded in this narrative. 

The first active demonstration of warlike activity was an 
incident which occurred in Memphis on March 28, 1861, when 
several companies of Mississippi volunteers passed through the 
city, bound for Pensacola, Florida, to become part of Col. James 
R. Chalmers' 9th Mississippi Regiment in the Confederate Army. 
These troops were handsomely uniformed and carried Missis- 
sippi State and Confederate flags. They were escorted from the 
old Mississippi & Tennessee depot to the Memphis & Charles- 
ton depot by two Memphis militia companies, the Memphis 
Southern Guards, Capt. J. W. Ilarableton and the Harris Zouave 
Cadets, Capt. Sherwin, the latter companies wearing the uni- 
form and bearing the flag of the United States. 

On April 28, 1861 the Southern Mothers, a patriotic band 
of women were organized for the purpose of nursing the sick 
and wounded soldiers. Their work was notable and continu- 
ous until the city was captured by the Federal forces in 1862, 
when they turned their attention, as far as permitted, to aid 
the Confederate prisoners in the Federal prisons. Some of 
these noble women yet survive, true Mothers in Israel, revered 
of all men. 

Louisiana sent April 28, in response to an appeal through 
W. G. Ford, a prominent citizen of Memphis, a battery of 32- 
pound guns, 3,000 Mississippi rifles and 500,000 cartridges to 
aid in the defense of Memphis. 

The old Quimby & Robinson foundry on the river-front 
where the sand bar now extends at the foot of Adams Street 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 341 

and the Memphis & Charleston Railway shops on Adams Street 
now the Southern yards, were utilized for the casting of brass 
and iron cannon, shell and grape-shot, and laboratories were 
improvised at various places for the manufacture of cartridges 
and fixed ammunition, many women and girls being employed 
in this business, whose nimble fingers were especially useful. 

General S. R. Anderson had been sent in April by Gov- 
ernor Harris to command the post here and he was succeeded 
on May 3, by General John L. T. Sneed. On July 13, Major- 
General Leonidas K. Polk, the soldier bishop of Mississippi, 
Louisiana and Arkansas, who had been commissioned by Pres- 
ident Davis, arrived and took command of the military 
department in the name of the Confederate States. 

On November 7, 1861, the first battle was fought in Mem- 
phis territory at Belmont, Missouri, opposite Columbus, Ken- 
tucky, Many Memphis soldiers were killed or wounded here, 
three of the Memphis regiments, the 2nd, 21st and 154th Ten- 
nessee losing an aggregate of 31 killed and 138 wounded. 
This loss of their own flesh and blood brought great grief to 
the people of the devoted city, which was not relieved by the 
sight of the large detachment of crest-fallen Federal prisoners 
marching up Main Street a few days after the battle. The 
hospitals, under the care of the Southern Mothers and sisters 
of St. Agnes Academy, largely took care of the Confederate 
wounded. 

After the fall of Fort Donelson and Nashville the state 
government was removed to Memphis and was located in a 
building at the northeast corner of Second and Madison 
Streets, the State Legislature was convened here and prepa- 
rations were at once made for the defense of the state and 
city. In April, 1862, fearing the capture of incomplete boats 
by the Union fleet, then endeavoring to force a passage down 
the Mississippi River, the Confederate government ordered the 
removal of the iron-clad gunboat and ram Arkansas, which 
had been constructed under the bluff at Fort Pickering at the 
debouchment of the Kansas City railroad incline, to New 
Orleans, but her commander, finding New Orleans occupied by 



342 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the Federal fleet, carried the boat up the Yazoo River where 
she was completed and put in commission. 

But the dreadful front of war was drawing nearer to Mem- 
phis. For several weeks in May, 1862, the deep bellowing of 
the big guns on the Federal mortar fleet, engaged in shelling 
Fort Pillow, forty miles north of Memphis on the river, could 
be counted by the citizen all through the night, as his head 
rested on his pillow, and then there was a pause at Fort Pillow 
and suddenly, on the morning of June 6, 1861 the Federal 
ironclad and ram fleet appeared at the very doors of the city 
and the war-cloud burst in uncontrolled fury over the homes 
of her devoted people. 

This being the first naval engagement, or other deadly 
operation of war, which had ever occurred here, a careful 
narrative will be here given of the gunboat battle, in all its 
tragic details. 

Before describing this most notable of gunboat battles on 
the inland waters of the continent it is proper to narrate some- 
thing of the invention and necessity for what were then called 
steam rams, or gunboats with prows of wood or metal, so con- 
structed as to be used for sinking an enemy's vessel by deliber- 
ate collision or raming its hull. 

The Confederates were the first inventors of these novel 
craft and had by means of the first completed one, the Vir- 
ginia, constructed of the old U. S. frigate Merrimac, attacked 
on the 8th of March, 1862, the Union fleet lying at anchor in 
Hampton Roads, Virginia, and destroyed the Congress and 
Cumberland, two famous war vessels of the olden type. This 
disaster called forth from Mr. Charles Ellet, Jr., a civil engi- 
neer, a pamphlet on the 6th of February, 1862, in which he 
called attention to the fact that the Confederates possessed 
five of these powerful engines of destruction, including the 
Merrimac at Norfolk, the other four being at Mobile and on 
the lower Mississippi River. He predicted that if these vessels 
got at large on the high seas they would prove a very danger- 
ous factor in the Civil War, as well as very destructive to the 
Commerce of the United States. This pamphlet called atten- 
tion to Colonel Ellet 's scheme and he was called to Washing- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 343 

ton and soon after authorized to construct an unarmored ram 
fleet for use upon the Mississippi River and tributaries and at 
once, by authority of the Government, purchased a number of 
steamboats and by reinforcing the hulls and prows and build- 
ing a bulkhead of heavy timber around the boilers, made of 
them very efficient naval monsters, able to destroy the most 
powerful gunboat, if it could be reached without first subject- 
ing the ram to destruction by its gunfire. 

Colonel Ellet, with the rank of Colonel of Marines, was in 
command of these improvised rams, viz: the Dick Fulton, 
Lancaster, Lioness, Mingo, Monarch, Que«n of the West, Samp- 
son, Switzerland and Horner. These were assembled by May 
25, at Fort Pillow, forty or fifty miles north of Memphis and 
which was then being besieged by the Federal gunboat fleet. 

In the meantime the Confederates had been busy along 
the same lines and on the 16th of January, 1862, Captain J. E. 
Montgomery selected at New Orleans twelve large tow boats 
and two ocean steamers then lying in the river and proceeded 
to fit them out as steam-rams and gunboats. 

The eight boats designed for service on the upper Mis- 
sissippi were the General Bragg, the General Price, the Gen- 
eral Van Dorn, the General Lovell, the General Beauregard, 
the General M. Jeff Thompson, the Little Rebel and the Sumter. 
These boats were completed between March 25, and April 17, 
1862, and were ordered to Fort Pillow as completed. When 
they left New Orleans they only carried two guns, a thirty- 
two and twenty-four pounder smoothbore, on the whole fleet, 
but at Fort Pillow each boat received a thirty-two pounder 
smoothbore and later four eight-inch guns were added. 

On the morning of the battle, June 6, 1862, Fort Pillow 
having been evacuated June 4, the Federal gunboat fleet, con- 
sisting of six heavily iron-plated gunboats, namely, the Benton, 
Essex, Cairo, Carondolet, St. Louis and Louisville, and the 
above named Federal ram-fleet, were assembled in the bend a 
couple of miles north of the city and the Confederate ram and 
gunboat fleet above named, were lying in front of the city at 
daylight, each busily engaged in clearing ship for action. 

Captain Montgomery, in command of the Confederate 



344 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

fleet, not having coal enough to enable his boats to proceed 
as far as the next Confederate stronghold at Vicksburg, but 
having enough for the purpose of maneuvering through a gun- 
boat battle, determined to try conclusions with the enemy and 
bring on a spectacular engagement, in front of the city of Mem- 
phis, with almost the entire population of the city on the bluffs 
as spectators. With this purpose a bit before sunrise, on the 
morning of June 6, 1862, the gunboat General M. Jeff Thomp- 
son, Captain J. H. Burke, and the gun-boat General Lovell, 
Captain J. C. Delancy, had taken positions at the foot of the 
bend above the city as an advance guard of his fleet. The 
Federal ironclad gunboat fleet was at once observed in battle 
formation across the bend, with four of the Federal rams, viz., 
the Queen of the West, Monarch, Lancaster and Switzerland in 
the act of making a landing at the bank above. Just at sun- 
rise a few minutes before five o'clock. Captain Burke of the 
Jeff Thompson being within easy range, fired on the Federal 
fleet with his eight-inch gun, which replied ere the reverbera- 
tion of the great gun ceased to repeat itself along the bends of 
the river. The action at once became furious. The Confederate 
fleet, as stated above, only had fourteen guns in the entire 
fleet, while the Federal ironclad fleet carried 84 guns of the 
heaviest calibre. The noise of the engagement exceeded any- 
thing in volume ever dreamed of theretofore in the little city 
by the riverside. The sound of the cannon was almost con- 
tinuous and the belching of smoke soon formed a wall of haze 
across the river, obscuring the enbattled gunboats from each 
other. It was the purpose of Commodore Montgomery, as he 
was then called, to use his boats as rams and thus destroy the 
Federal gunboat fleet by attacking their six ironclads with his 
eight rams. But he made the fatal mistake, or perhaps his 
subordinate commanders did, of stopping to fire their guns. 
At the sound of the first Confederate gun Colonel Ellet instantly 
gave orders to his ram fleet, calling out, "It is a gun from 
the enemy ! Round out and follow me ! Now is our chance ! ' ' 
The Queen of the West swung around, followed by the Monarch, 
in obedience to this order, and glided rapidly towards the 
openings between the Federal ironclads for the purpose of 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 345 

getting to the front. "Some of the officers of the Lancaster, 
the next boat in the line, became excited and confused and the 
pilot erred in signals, and backed the boat ashore and disabled 
her rudder. The captain of the Switzerland construed the 
general signal order to keep half a mile in rear of Lancaster to 
mean that he was to keep half a mile behind her in the engage- 
ment and therefore failed to participate; hence the whole 
brunt of the fight fell upon the Queen and the Monarch."* 

These two steamers gallantly passed through the blazing 
line of Federal ironclads and through the belt of smoke 
in which only the tall chimneys of the Queen could be 
seen and came out in front of the entire Confederate fleet. 
Selecting the General Lovell, Captain Delancey as the nearest 
Confederate craft on which to try the power of his ran. Colonel 
Ellet signalled his brother, Captain Alfred "W. Ellet, of the 
Monarch, to ram the General Price, Capt. J. E. Henthorne, 
which was at the extreme right of the Confederate line, and 
steamed swiftly toward the General Lovell. The Lovell 
accepted the challenge bravely and moved forward head on for 
the prow of the Queen of the West. But here the first accident 
of the battle occurred. The engines of the General Lovell got 
out of order and the boat became unmanageable, drifting half 
way round and exposing her side, which the Queen of the 
West struck amidships, crushing in her hull. For a few min- 
utes the Queen of the West and the Lovell were entangled, 
and as the Queen of the West withdrew her prow the General 
Lovell, with a lurch, sank quickly beneath the muddy waters. 
A striking incident was witnessed from the shore at this 
moment by the cheering crowds of citizens. As the Lovell 
went down the bow gunners were loading the big eight-inch 
gun and unwilling to be denied, attached the lanyard and fired 
the gun for the last time at the enemy, while standing waist- 
deep in the water on the deck of the sinking vessel. The crew 
of the Lovell all escaped by swimming to the landing at the old 
Navy Yard. 

As the Queen of the West stood by to see the Lovell sink 

♦Report of Secretary, Capt. A. B. Hill. 



346 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

she was attacked by the Sumter from the east side, which 
struck her a heavy blow and disabled her wheel, leaving her 
helpless in the battle. Just at the moment of collision Colonel 
Ellet was shot in the knee with a pistol by Signal Quarter- 
master J. Sullivan on the Confederate vessel, receiving a 
wound which at once disabled him and a short while later 
resulted in his death. Lying helpless on the hurricane deck 
Colonel Ellet gave the order to run his boat on one wheel to 
the Arkansas shore, where she was grounded and took no 
further part in the combat. 

The Monarch had in pursuance of her first order from 
Colonel Ellet singled out the General Price for ramming and was 
met by the Price in the onset with the like purpose of ram- 
ming the Monarch. They struck each other glancing blows 
which resulted in injury to neither. The Monarch then pro- 
ceeded to attack the Beauregard which had turned and was 
coming down the river and was herself assailed by the General 
Price, but the Monarch being much the swifter of the boats 
moved past the Beauregard and Price and the Beauregard 
struck the Price, cutting off her wheel. The Price then crossed 
over to her and was run aground near the disabled Queen of 
the West and her unarmed crew was captured by the armed 
marines from the Queen, who had gone ashore for that pur- 
pose. 

The Beauregard then endeavored to escape downstream 
and rejoin the remaining boats, but was intercepted by the 
Monarch and struck a heavy blow which wrought serious 
damage to her hull. The Beauregard was immediately hit by 
a big Federal shell in her waist, which completely disabled 
and almost wrecked her and she signalled to the Monarch her 
purpose to surrender. But the Monarch, which actually did 
most of the ram fighting and inflicted the greatest amount of 
injury or damage upon the Confederate boats sighted the Little 
Rebel, the flagship of Captain Montgomery, and headed for 
her. The Little Rebel was then endeavoring to ram a gunboat 
and was struck by a shell below the water-line, which passed 
through her boilers, completely wrecking her. The crew 
sprang into the river to swim ashore on the Arkansas side and 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 347 

the boat being near the shore, the Monarch attempted to ram 
her, but having only slight headway pushed her hard aground 
in shallow water. The crew of the Little Rebel escaped by 
swimming to the shore. The Monarch then returned to the Beau- 
regard and towed her ashore with the hope of saving her, but 
she sunk to her boiler deck and later proved a total loss. 

The Sumter and Bragg, like the other vessels of the Con- 
federate fleet, had relied rather upon their guns than their 
prows, except when the Sumter assailed the Queen of the West 
near the beginning of the battle, with disastrous results to the 
latter, and being much cut up by the shot and shell of the 
Federal fleet, and manoeuvering to escape, both got aground in 
the shallow water of the bar on the Arkansas shore, and were 
soon after captured. 

The Jeff Thompson fighting gallantly and assailed now 
from every side by an overwhelming force, was run ashore 
around the bend by Capt. Burke and set on fire, his men 
escaping to the shore, and soon blew up with a tremendous 
explosion. 

The Van Dorn, the last of the Confederate vessels, having 
a good supply of coal and being uninjured in the fight, showed 
a clean pair of heels and escaped down the river. The store- 
boat Paul Jones also escaped in company with the Van Dorn, 
both going up the Yazoo River. This left the hapless city on the 
bluff at the mercy of the enemy's fleet and the crowds extending 
from Poplar to Union Streets along the river front sorrowfully 
waited in silence and humiliation to see what next would 
happen. 

They did not have to wait long. Towards the close of 
the engagement Colonel Ellet was informed that a white flag 
had been raised in Memphis and sent his young son. Medical 
Cadet Chas. R. Ellet, ashore to demand the surrender of the 
city. It is curiously enough stated by Capt. Alfred W. Ellet, 
brother of Colonel Ellet, and in command of the ram Monarch 
during the battle, that Cadet Charles R. Ellet, was sent ashore 
in a rowboat with a party of three and a flag of truce and 
demanded the surrender of the city. The editor, then a boy of fif- 
teen years, was a spectator on the bluff at the close of the engage- 



348 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

ment and, tumbling down from the face of the bluff as a Federal 
ram approached the shore about the foot of Court Street, ran 
down the levee and reached the edge of the river just as the 
ram touched the shore and ran out a stage plank. The ram 
carried a small flag of truce, not larger than a pocket hander- 
chief on her jack-staff peak, and a number of marines were on 
duty in front of the bulklead about the bow of the boat. Some 
other small boys threw pebbles at these marines, calling them 
blue-bellies, which only provoked a smile and a warning. The 
editor's recollection is that this boat bore the name Monarch 
on a board at the top of the front cabin deck. A moment later 
a young man, who appeared to be eighteen or twenty years of 
age, came out on the gang-plank, not with a flag of truce, but 
with a United States flag tightly rolled up and tucked under 
his left arm with the staff extending behind him and without 
any escort of any sort, commenced to ascend the levee, fol- 
lowed first by the writer and perhaps two dozen small boys 
and three or four men, and proceeded rapidly up the bluff 
across Front Street to the then Federal Building or Post Office, 
now the Woman's Building, at the northeast corner of Jeffer- 
son and Third Streets, on reaching which the young man 
ascended the stairways and attic ladder to the top of the 
building, where he unfurled the United States flag. In the 
meantime the crowd accompanying him grew to several hun- 
dred in numbers but were perfectly orderly until the flag was 
unfurled. The mayor met the young cadet at the postoffice 
building and accompanied him to the roof with one or two 
policemen. When the Stars and Stripes were unfurled on the 
building the crowd below became noisy and attempted to reach 
the roof with a view to throwing the bold intruder off the 
building. A Confederate flag was soon obtained with a strong 
new, ashen staff and was carried up by a young man to replace 
the Federal flag, but the trap-door at the roof of the building 
was fastened down with a big policeman standing upon it, and 
all the efforts of the muscular young man to break the door 
with the aid of his ash flag-pole, proved unavailing. The 
crowd or mob then returned to the street and Mr. George W. 
L. Crook, then a young man, but afterwards quite a prominent 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 349 

citizen of Memphis, ran over to the southwest corner of Jeffer- 
son and Third Streets and ascending the steps at the front 
wall to the elevated yard of the Cummings Johnson residence, 
fired two or three shots with a revolver at the bold young cadet 
on the building. These proved ineffective and did not seem 
even to startle the cadet, who stood imperturbably by his flag, 
and the crowd left hurriedly to return to Front Street and 
see what further might be going on there. These are the 
personal recollections of the editor after fifty years and are 
still very vivid in his memory. 

The young cadet Ellet bore with him a written message 
from Col. Charles Ellet to the mayor and civil authorities of 
Memphis, which was as follows : 

"Opposite Memphis, June 6, 1862. 
"To the Civic or Military Authorities of Memphis: 

' ' Gentlemen : I understand that the city of Memphis has 
surrendered. I therefore send my son with two United States 
flags, with instructions to raise one upon your Custom House 
and the other upon the Court House, as evidence of the return 
of your city to the care and protection of the Constitution. 

Chas. Ellet, Jr., Colonel Commanding." 

The Mayor's reply was as follows: 

"Mayor's Office, Memphis, Tenn., June 6, 1862. 
"Col. Charles Ellet, Jr., Commanding, &c. 

' ' Sir : — Your note of this date is received and contents 
noted. The civil authorities of this city are not advised of 
its surrender to the forces of the United States government, 
and our reply to you is simply to state respectfully that we 
have no forces to oppose the raising of the flag you have 
directed to be raised over the Custom House and post-office. 

Respectfully, 

Jno. Park, Mayor." 

Later in the morning Flag Officer C. H. Davis, command- 
ing the Federal fleet, also sent the following communication 
to the Mayor of the city : 

"U. S. Flag-steamer Benton, 

Off Memphis, June 6, 1862. 



350 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

' ' To His Honor, the Mayor of the City of Memphis : 

' ' Sir : I have respectfully to request that you will sur- 
render the city of Memphis to the authority of the United 
States, which I have the honor to represent. 

"I am, Mr. Mayor, with high respect, your most obedient 
servant, C. H. Davis, 

Flag-officer, Commanding, &c." 

To this the Mayor replied : 

"Mayor's Office, Memphis, June 6, 1862. 
"C, H. Davis, Flag-officer, Commanding, &c. 

"Sir: Your note of this day is received and contents 
noted. Tn reply I have only to say that as the civil authorities 
have no means of defense, by the force of circumstances the 
city is in your hands. Respectfully, 

John Park, IMayor " 

Later in the day another communication was sent ashore 
to the Mayor as follows : 

"U. S. Flagsteamer Benton, Off Memphis, 

June 6, 1862. 

"To His Honor, the Mayor of the City of Memphis, 

"Sir: The undersigned, commanding the military and 
naval forces in front of Memphis, have the honor to say to the 
Mayor of the city, that Colonel Fitch, commanding the Indiana 
brigade, will take military possession of the city immediately. 

"Colonel Fitch will be happy to receive the cooperation 
of his honor the mayor and the city authorities in maintaining 
peace and order, and to this end he will be pleased to confer 
with his honor at the military headquarters at three o'clock 
this afternoon. 

"The undersigned have the honor to be, with high respect, 
your most obedient servants, 

C. H. Davis, Commanding Afloat, 

G. N. Fitch, Colonel, commanding Indiana brigade." 

To this the Mayor replied : 

"Mayor's Office, June 6, 1862. 
"To Flag-officer C. II. Davis and Col. G. N. Fitch, 

"Sirs: Your communication is received and I shall be 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 351 

happy to cooperate with the colonel commanding in providing 
measures for maintaining peace and order in the city. 

Your most obedient servant, 

Jno. Park, Mayor." 

And thus the possession of the city of Memphis was trans- 
ferred forever from the control of the Confederate Govern- 
ment to that of the United States. 

After the naval battle at Memphis the city remained 
quietly, as a garrison town of the Federal army, frequently 
congested with large bodies of troops assembled here prelim- 
inary to some important movement on the chess-board of war 
and at all times occupied by Federal officers pertaining to the 
garrison and to transient armies and who in many instances, 
fortunately not in all, caused great annoyance to the people 
of the town by petty persecutions and sometimes by wanton 
outrage. 

The citizens of Memphis as a whole were unquestionably 
loyal to the cause of the South and did all in their power to aid 
it. They would go to great extremes, especially the devoted 
women of the town, to smuggle through the lines salt, medicine, 
clothing and other indispensables for their families in the 
Southern Army and this fact called down upon their heads the 
frequent wrath of the Federal officers. This wrath was exhib- 
ited in various ways. Sometimes refined women of prominent 
families were arrested and confined in the Irving Block prison, 
a place so horrible in its appointments that it subsequently 
abated by order of President Lincoln ; the Commandant, 
Capt. Geo. A. Williams, being cashiered, but subsequently 
restored to duty as not being mainly responsible for the con- 
dition of the prison. An excerpt is here made as part of the 
history of the city, from a report made by Judge Advocate 
General J. Holt to President Lincoln, by whom the matter of 
the condition of the prison had been referred to him for report. 
General Holt says : 

"According to a report of inspection made to Colonel 
Hardie by Lieut. Colonel John F. Marsh, 24th regiment Veteran 
Reserve corps, under date of April 28, 1864, the prison which 
is used for the detention of citizens, prisoners of war on their 



352 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

way to the North and the United States soldiers awaiting trial 
and which is located in a large block of stores is represented 
as the filthiest place the inspector ever saw occupied by human 
beings. The report proceeds thus: 

" 'The whole management and government of the prison 
could not be worse! Discipline and order are unknown. Food 
sufficient but badly served. In a dark wet cellar I found 
twenty-eight prisoners chained to a wet floor, where they had 
been constantly confined, many of them for several months, one 
since November 16, 1863, and are not for a moment released, 
even to relieve the calls of nature. With a single exception 
these men have had no trial.' 

"The hospital is described as having a shiftless appearance 
and the guard dirty and inefficient. It is also stated that there 
was no book or memorandum showing the distribution of the 
prison fund." 

If the curtain of forgetfulness could be drawn back and 
all the stories, romantic, pathetic, pitiful, which originated in 
that dire dungeon during the several years in which it was 
occupied as a military prison by the Federal authorities dis- 
closed, humanity would be shocked by the tragic narration. 
A few years ago when the building was being repaired and the 
kalsomining scraped from the walls in the upper stories the 
walls were found to be covered with legends written there by 
the victims of military oppression, giving their names and dates 
and sometimes details of their experiences. All this makes a 
dark chapter in the story of the Federal occupation of the 
city. The officer of the guard, a man named Lewis, wantonly 
shot a prisoner. Lieutenant Colonel Wood, of an Arkansas regi- 
ment, while asleep in bed. Lewis was arrested and ordered to 
be shot but escaped and disappeared. This is the only known 
or recorded instance of an attempt to punish any of those petty 
military tyrants for their crimes committed in connection with 
the Irving Block prison. 

Sometimes ladies were sent to the state penitentiary at 
Alton, Illinois, and sometimes they were transported through 
the Federal lines and set adrift without protection. When 
the Confederate troops undertook to prevent the operation of 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 353 

trains on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad by attacking 
and capturing the trains and guard, groups of prominent citi- 
zens were arrested by orders of General Sherman and confined 
in passenger coaches on the trains, that they might receive the 
fire of their Southern friends in case the train was attacked. 
Occasionally, when scouts were fired on in the vicinity of Mem- 
phis, General Sherman would send a detachment with orders 
to burn all the houses in the vicinity and to shoot the male 
inhabitants. When steamboats were fired on, while engaged in 
military duties in the vicinity of Memphis, the nearest town 
was burned in retaliation and in this way Hopefield, opposite 
Memphis, and Randolph some forty miles above Memphis, met 
with a fiery doom. These are not merely baseless charges, 
growing out of legends or rumors which have survived the war, 
but the facts in these several cases are fully set out in the 
reports of the Federal commanders, printed in the Records of 
the Rebellion now to be found in every public library. 

In order to make the town impregnable a great fortress 
was built in the southern part of the city on the river-bank 
known as Fort Pickering, probably named for the old fort 
built in that quarter about 1803, by General Wilkinson. This 
fortress was built in a broken line beginning at or about the 
foot of Vance Street and running somewhat southeastward and 
turning in towards the river again below the site^ of the Marine 
hospital, as at present located. The greatest distance from 
the river reached by the eastward extention of the fort, was 
at an angle about or near the corner of Railroad and Pennsyl- 
vania Avenues, some fifteen hundred feet from the river-bank. 

Brig. General Z. B. Tower, in a report made of this forti- 
fication, on May 25, 1865, says among other things : 

"Fort Pickering, with its keep, has a crest of about two 
miles and a half in length. If we except Washington, upon 
which immense labor has been expended, no city has been so 
thoroughly defended with redoubts and infantry lines upon a 
development of six miles as indicated above. * * * * This fort 
is mostly a broken line. Its ditches are therefore swept. It 
is fairly constructed, has a good command, so that the parapet 
gives excellent cover to the defenders; some traverses along 



354 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the crest and some within the work would have been judicious, 
furnishing excellent resting places for portions of a garrison 
not on duty. The ditches are from six to seven feet deep and 
excavated on so steep a slope (which the tenacious soil per- 
mits) that it would be difficult to get over the parapet without 
ladders, and especially so under canister and musketry fire. 
The work therefore may be pronounced strong as an obstacle, 
which obstacle has been increased in portions of the contour 
lines by inclined palisades placed in advance. It would be 
difficult to assault Fort Pickering. * * * * There are some 
magazines near the parapet and under its cover. At the south 
end of the fort two ancient mounds are used as barbette bat- 
teries, which have a fine command over the country." 

These mounds, it will readily be seen, are the Chisca 
Mounds, remaining just as they were discovered by DeSoto, as 
stated in the early part of this narrative, and the magazines 
referred to by General Tower are constructed of brick and 
cement and are still to be seen deep in the bodies of the mound. 

This great fort which, next to Fortress Rosecrans at Mur- 
freesboro, was the most powerful fortress constructed by the 
Federal armies in the South during the Civil War, was armed 
with 97 pieces of artillery ranging from six pounder field- 
batteries to thirty-two-pounder rifle cannon and eight-inch 
columbiads and siege-mortars. 

And so, as the war went on from year to year, the people 
were more and more antagonized by their conquerers and 
became more and more resentful, but with the exception of 
some skirmishes on the outposts, or an occasional alarm caused 
by a rumor of a descent of Forrest, there was no real fighting 
or bloody drama of war enacted within the limits of the city 
until the 21st of August, 1864. 

At this time General Forrest, who had been engaged for 
several months in conducting formidable raids into West Ten- 
nessee, or in defending the great grain section in the prairie 
regions of Mississippi from repeated Federal endeavors to 
destroy it and being confronted with a large army of infantry 
and cavalry which was rapidly forcing his small command of 
about 3,500 men southward in the vicinity of Oxford, Missis- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 355 

sippi, conceived the idea of riding past the Federal column 
commanded by General A. J. Smith, attaining his rear and 
making a rapid descent on Memphis, his great base of opera- 
tions, and by capturing it with an irresistable charge at day- 
break, force his overwhelming competitor to withdraw from 
Mississippi. This scheme once conceived by Forrest, was 
carried out with lightning-like rapidity and the troopers of 
the famous Confederate cavalry commander were actually 
dashing through the streets of the city of Memphis a hundred 
miles to Smith's rear, shouting, shooting and riding down their 
terrified enemies before General Smith had discovered his 
adversary's absence from his front. 

Forrest, in order to carry out his brilliant conception, had 
taken about 1500 of the 3500 men under his command at 
Oxford, the detachment being of picked men and horses of 
Bell's, McCulloch's and Neely's brigades, and a section of 
Morton's battery, and left Oxford at five o'clock on the after- 
noon of August 18, 1864, in a pouring rain and started to 
Memphis, being compelled to make a circuitous route by 
Panola in order to make a crossing of the swollen Tallahatchie 
River. The march was made with tremendous speed in mud 
and rain, Panola being reached at seven o'clock on the morn- 
ing of the 19th, and Senatobia on the same afternoon, where he 
stayed all night. Stopping next morning at Ilickahala Creek 
and then at Cold Water, over which formidable streams he was 
compelled to improvise bridges constructed of logs, telegraph 
poles, grape-vines and the floors of gin-houses, by nightfall 
Forrest was at Hernando and after stopping to feed and water 
his tired horses took the direct road for Memphis in a drizzling 
rain with a great fog prevailing. 

The command approached the city by way of the Her- 
nando Road and was at Cane Creek about four miles from 
Court Square, by three o'clock in the morning. ^Meantime 
Forrest had, with his usual foresight, ascertained through 
trusted scouts and spies the exact condition of things in the 
menaced city, the number of troops there, the location of the 
encampment, the positions of the picket posts and, more 
important than all, the exact locations of the places of abode 



356 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

of the three Federal commanders, Generals C. C. Washburn, 
S. A. Hurlbut and R. P. Buckland. Calling his brigade and 
detachment commanders together Forrest gave detailed and 
explicit instructions as to the part each one was assigned to 
perform in the approaching drama and distributed among 
them the necessary guides. His brother, Captain Wm. H. 
Forrest, was directed to surprise the picket on the Hernando 
Road, if possible, and then to dash forward into the city with- 
out being diverted for any other purpose, and following the 
most direct route to the Gayoso House, to capture Major Gen- 
eral Hurlbut and other Federal officers known to be quartered 
there. Colonel Neely was directed to charge impetuously the 
big encampment of one hundred days' men bivouched across 
the Hernando Road in the southern outskirts of the city and 
to use for this purpose his command composed of the Second 
Missouri, Lieut. Col. Bob McCulloch, 14th Tennessee, Lieut. 
Col. R. R. White and 18th Mississippi, Lieut. Col. Ham Chal- 
mers. Col. Thomas H. Logwood was to follow rapidly after 
Captain Forrest with the 12th and 15th Tennessee regiments, 
leaving detachments for observation at Main and Beale and 
Shelby and Beale Streets, and to establish another at the 
steamboat landing at the foot of Union Street. Lieut. Col. 
Jesse Forrest was ordered to move rapidly down DeSoto 
Street to Union and thence westward along that street to the 
residence of Major-General C. C. Washburn, then in command 
of Memphis, on the north side of Union at the alley east of 
Third Street in the building now known as the Blood residence, 
206-8 Union Avenue, the General's headquarters being then 
in the residence of Gen. Joseph R. Williams, later the Y. M. C. 
A. building and now the University of Tennessee building on 
the south side of Union Avenue opposite the intersection of 
Third Street. Colonel Forrest's orders were to surround the 
residence and capture General Washburn at all hazards. 

General Forrest ordered to be held in reserve Newsom's 
and Russell's regiment and the Second Tennessee under Lieut. 
Colonel Morton, with Sale's section of artillery, which force 
was designed to cover the movement and keep the highway 
open for retreat, when the troopers who had entered the city 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 357 

had accomplished their purpose. Everything being ready the 
command was formed into column of fours and moved for- 
ward at a quarter past three a. m., Captain "William H. For- 
rest, brother of the General, being in command of the vanguard, 
a picked body of forty men. 

It was still dark, a heavy fog having settled over the 
environs of Memphis following the three days of rain and this 
fog was so dense that neither man nor horse could be distin- 
guished at more than thirty paces, as the column headed by 
Captain Forrest filed noiselessly across the Cane Creek bridge. 
General Forrest, who left nothing to chance, after a half-mile 
march, halted his column and sent his accomplished aide-de- 
camp. Captain C. W. Anderson, to see that each officer "under- 
stood precisely and clearly the duty that had been specially 
entrusted to his execution." When Captain C. W. Anderson 
reported, showing that all was clearly understood by the com- 
manders, General Forrest put the column in motion again at a 
slow walk. He had enjoined upon all commanders and 
soldiers the necessity of the most perfect silence until the 
heart of the town was reached and the surprise was complete. 

Captain Forrest, with ten picked men rode some sixty 
paces ahead of his command until the first picket was reached, 
about two miles from Court Square on the Hernando Road. 
When the challenge of the picket came in the stillness of the 
morning calling out, ''Halt! Who comes there!" Captain 
Forrest was ready with an answer and quietly replied, "A 
detachment of the 12th Missouri cavalry with rebel prisoners." 
Instantly came the usual response of the picket, "Advance 
one ! ' ' Captain Forrest rode forward, telling his men to fol- 
low silently but closely behind. When he reached the picket 
mounted in the middle of the road Captain Forrest rode up 
familiarly beside him as if to explain who he was but suddenly, 
with his heavy revolver, struck the unsuspecting picket such 
a crushing blow on the head that he reeled from his saddle to 
the ground. His men sprang forward and captured the picket- 
post a few steps rearward to the left of the highway with 
scarcely a sound above their voices. One of the pickets, how- 
ever, a little apart from the others, fired his gun, which was 



368 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

heard with no little concern by General Forrest, who was rid- 
ing at the head of his column one hundred yards to the rear 
of his brother. Captain Forrest instantly pressed forward 
with his detachment and a quarter of a mile rearward was 
received with a volley by the next picket-post which had been 
given the alarm by the firing of the single gun. Captain For- 
rest instantly charged this post, scattering the pickets in every 
direction and, without waiting to secure them as prisoners, 
and knowing that he was now past the picket lines, dashed 
forward with his little squadron towards the city. But the 
boyish troopers in their enthusiasm forgot the injunction of 
silence and when within, as they soon were, the suburbs of 
the city they began shouting in the wildest fashion and the 
contagion spreading, the whole column was soon madly riding 
forward on the Hernando Road at full cry like a pack of 
eager hounds. 

The day was just breaking when a long line of tents 
stretching across the highway in front and occupied by sleep- 
ing Federal soldiers became visible through the fog. The 
alarm having been given by the shouting against the express 
orders of General Forrest, nothing could be gained by further 
silence, and calling to his favorite bugler, Gauze, always at 
his elbow in battle, Forrest directed the charge to be blown 
and instantly every regimental bugle took up and repeated 
again and again the inspiring notes. Captain Forrest's detach- 
ment discovered just short of the encampment the Federal bat- 
tery in bivouac besides the road to the left and immediately 
left the highway and charged the sleeping artillerists, shooting 
some 15 or 20 of them as they sprang from their blankets, and 
without stopping to secure the guns, galloped on in their mad 
rush for the heart of the city, not drawing rein until they 
had reached the Gayoso Hotel, the place of abode of Major 
General S. A. Hurlbut. Meantime Col. Thos. H. Logwood, who 
had been ordered to take two regiments, the 12th and 15th 
Tennessee and dash for the heart of the city, deploying his 
men when he reached the position on Beale Street, from DeSoto 
to the river in order to present a barrier to any Federal force 
attempting to drive the two detachments away which were 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 359 

hunting for the Federal generals in their residences, had suc- 
ceeded in reaching his goal, but passed en route, through a 
column of infantry, formed across the Hernando road in haste 
following the alarm of the attack, and finally galloped down 
Hernando Street to the market-house and up Beale across to 
the Gayoso Hotel. The men, wild with excitement, and many 
of them for the first time since the war in their native town 
again, shouted like demons as they rode and thousands of citi- 
zens, aroused from their slumbers by the unwonted din, and 
finding their streets occupied by gray-coated troopers, threw 
off all timidity and men and women in their night-clothes 
filled the galleries and windows of residences, waving handker- 
chiefs or pillow-slips and shouting in unrestrained glee, "It's 
Forrest! It's Forrest!" As narrated by an eye-witness soon 
after, "Memphis was the home of many of those gray-coated 
young riders who suddenly burst into the heart of the city 
that August morning; and the women, young and old, forget- 
ting the costume of the hour, throwing open their window 
blinds and doors, welcomed their dear countrymen by voice 
and smiles and every possible manifestation of delight inspired 
by such an advent." 

In the meantime Lieut. Colonel Jesse Forrest, another 
brother of the General's, had with a detachment by direction 
of the General, ridden rapidly and silently through the streets 
to the residence and headquarters of General C. C. Washburn, 
the residence being now known as the Blood House, No. 206 
Union Avenue, but at that time the home of Mr. W. B. Green- 
law, a prominent citizen, which had been seized by General 
Washburn in the absence of Mr. Greenlaw for his own domi- 
cile and that of his family. The building is the large two-story 
brick structure on the north side of Union Avenue nearly a 
block east of Third Street and the headquarters was at the 
residence of General Joseph Williams, which was subsequently 
known as the Y. M. C. A. Building and later the University 
of Memphis Building, No. 177 on the south side of Union 
Avenue, nearly opposite the intersection of Third Street. Col. 
Jesse Forrest's detachment, including some Memphis boys 
familiar with the premises, reached and surrounded the build- 



360 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

ing, but the bird had flown. General Washburn had been noti- 
fied by a courier sent by Col. M. H. Starr of the 6th Illinois 
cavalry, of his danger, and being warned by the courier that 
the firing nearby was by Forrest's men, had slipped down the 
interior basement stairs in his night-clothes and going into the 
alley between Monroe and Union Streets, had fled bare-footed 
to the river blufi^s at the foot of Union Street and thence along 
under the bluffs to the Federal fortress, the north end of 
which touched the river-bank about the foot of Vance Street. 
The General escaped from his residence while or just before 
the gray-clad troopers under Col. Jesse Forrest were climbing 
the front and rear steps of the building, leaving his uniform, 
boots, hat and sword in his bed-room where his wife was also 
found, and these articles of attire, together with his private 
papers, were secured by the Confederate troopers. The dra- 
matic incident and narrow escape caused General Hurlbut to 
remark next morning, when he heard of it, as narrated by 
General Chalmers, "There it goes again! They superseded 
me with Washburn because I could not keep Forrest out of 
West Tennessee, and Washburn cannot keep him out of his 
bed-room ! ' ' 

General Forrest, later in the day, courteously returned 
by flag of truce, the uniform and sword of General Washburn 
to that doughty commander with the message that he, a Fed- 
eral Major-general, would probably have more need of them 
than Forrest had and incidentally another message, that he 
had 600 Federal prisoners barefooted and hatless down on the 
Hernando road and would like to have some clothing and pro- 
visions for them, which request was promptly granted by 
General Washburn, the supplies sent being so lavish that after 
feeding his prisoners General Forrest was enabled to give a 
full meal to each of his own men. 

In the meantime Captain Forrest, with his detachment of 
forty bold riders, had reached and surrounded the Gayoso 
Hotel with the hope of capturing General Hurlbut and staff, 
as before stated. Captain Forrest, with the instinctive indi- 
viduality of the Forrest family, rode with several of his com- 
panions mounted into the rotunda of the hotel from Shelby 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 361 

Street and calling for the hotel register and a cigar, both of 
which were promptly furnished by the frightened clerk, he 
registered his name as a guest. He then began a systematic 
search of all the rooms for Federal officers and found and put 
under guard a number but failed to find General Hurlbut, that 
officer lodging that night as reported by General Washburn, 
with Col. A. R. Eddy, assistant quarter-master. A Federal 
officer, hearing the disturbance in the rotunda and supposing 
it to be caused by some drunken Federal soldiers leaned over 
the balcony and called out to know what the trouble was. 
Captain Forrest startlingly made him aware of the nature of 
the trouble by a pistol-ball which caused the untimely death 
of the Federal officer. 

While these dramatic occurrences were happening in the 
city. General Forrest, who had remained behind with the 
remainder of his force in the suburbs to look after the Federal 
forces in that quarter and to prevent his daring columns, then 
in the heart of the city, from being cut off in their effort to 
rejoin him, had found much to do along the line of the Her- 
nando road and eastward on McLemore Avenue in subduing 
the now thoroughly aroused Federal troops in that quarter. 
Neely's men after Colonels Logwood and Forrest, had broken 
through the line of Federal encampment reaching across the 
Hernando Road, had charged eastward of that road into that 
part of the encampment and met with serious resistance after 
the Federal soldiers had recovered from their first alarm. The 
two regiments of one hundred day men and some other troops 
in that quarter, about a thousand strong, had succeeded in 
deploying and received Colonel Neely's men from the rear of 
their tents with a hot fire. Upon observing this General For- 
rest led the other column of reserves under Colonel Bell to 
Neely's aid, intending to attack the Federals on their left 
flank; but he here unexpectedly came across a cavalry camp 
from which he received a withering fire. This command was 
extended along in the grove just north of McLemore Avenue, 
General Forrest, without waiting for the reserves still to his 
rearward, instantly charged this encampment with his escort, 
dispersing the Federals and capturing all their horses with 



362 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

many prisoners. Neely at the same time charged dismounted 
upon the hundred-day men in his front, driving them pell mell 
northward. Many of these and most of the cavalry detach- 
ment took refuge in the State Female College buildings, several 
hundred yards eastward, the strong brick walls of which 
afforded them perfect shelter. Unable to dislodge them Gen- 
eral Forrest directed Lieutenant Sale to bring up this section 
of artillery and shell the enemy out of the buildings which 
were then vacant. A number of shells were fired and several 
exploded in the main building. But finding the place very 
strong and not worth the loss it would cost to capture it Gen- 
eral Forrest withdrew his reserves back to the Hernando road 
so as to prevent the reassembling there of Federal troops who 
might cut off the retreat of his men from the city. 

In the meantime, having accomplished the objects for 
which they had been sent into the uptown districts, the Con- 
federates in that quarter had been ordered to retire and rejoin 
General Forrest on the Hernando Road. The detachments 
uptown had become much scattered in their enthusiastic rushes 
about the city and it required some little time to collect them, 
but having at length rejoined their respective columns. Colon- 
els Logwood and Forrest effected a junction on DeSoto Street 
and moved out together. When they had reached the vicinity 
of the Provine house on the Hernando Road they found a 
strong line of infantry formed across that highway as a sup- 
port for the batteries there, the same whose gunners had been 
twice dispersed in the rush into the town, but had once more 
rallied and taken position commanding the road. When this 
force was reached it was instantly charged mounted by Capt. 
Peter Williams, Company I, 15th Tennessee, who received a 
check, but being reinforced by Company H, Lieutenant With- 
erspoon of the same regiment, another charge was made, and 
this time the brave gunners were again driven away and the 
guns captured, but for want of teams could not be brought 
away. All the Confederates were now out of the city except 
the small number which had been killed, wounded or captured 
and a few stragglers who were soon chased out by a body of 
several hundred Federal cavalry. This force found some other 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 363 

of Forrest's men still in the infantry camp, engaged in equip- 
ping or feeding themselves on the abandoned rations, and 
these endeavored to mount and get away. Finding them in 
peril General Forrest, taking a small detachment of the 2nd 
Missouri Cavalry nearby charged in turn and drove the Fed- 
eral detachment back. An incident strikingly characteristic 
of Forrest occurred here. Col. M. H. Starr, of the 6th Illinois 
cavalry headed this detachment and bravely confronted For- 
rest in the charge. Colonel Starr rode out in front of his com- 
mand as if to challenge General Forrest, whom he recognized, 
to personal combat between the lines. Forrest instantly 
accepted the challenge and leaving his detachment halted, 
turned the head of King Philip, his famous war horse, toward 
the brave Federal commander and rushed forward alone. At 
this juncture however, a detachment of the 15th Tennessee, 
under Col. Hugh D. Greer of Memphis, which was nearby, 
observed the apparent rashness of their General and fearing 
that he would be himself killed by the Federal line after dis- 
posing of Colonel Starr, which none doubted he would do, 
were ordered by Colonel Greer to end the strange combat by 
firing on Colonel Starr. This was promptly done by several 
dismounted riflemen and Colonel Starr was mortally wounded. 
Forrest, enraged at being thus deprived of his opportunity as 
a swordsman, galloped rapidly to the front of the 15th Ten- 
nessee detachment and denounced them vehemently in no 
choice language for shooting Colonel Starr, saying that the 
latter was a brave man and that he intended to meet him as a 
soldier and give him every chance to defend himself. 

The Confederate troops were then withdrawn quietly and 
deliberately to Cane Creek, a mile from the scene of this last 
fighting, and halted there, where they were not further molested 
by Federal soldiers. There were many interesting incidents 
which occurred uptown during the wild ride of these boyish 
troopers through the heart of the city. Several endeavored 
to release the Confederate prisoners in the Irving Block, still 
standing near the northeast corner of Court Square, but found 
it strongly guarded and barricaded. Private James Stokes of 
the Bluff City Grays, a Memphis company in Forrest's old reg- 



364 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

iment, went as far as the Federal building or post-office, now 
the Woman's Building, at the northeast corner of Jefferson 
and Third Streets, and was killed by a shot from the Federal 
barracks just eastward on Jefferson Street. His gun, a breech- 
loading carbine, was picked up by a citizen and preserved, 
and is now a valued relic in the hall of the Confederate His- 
toric Association, recalling as a souvenir of those bloody days 
the death of a brave son of Memphis fighting for her release 
from captivity on one of her prominent streets. Many Federal 
horses and equipments were gathered up by the bold riders as 
well as several hundred prisoners, the latter being largely 
taken in the charge upon the encampment south of the city. 
When the Federal battery was first charged in the onset into 
the city the guns were abandoned by the frightened gunners 
but a colored sergeant, Benjamin F. Thacker, who was detailed 
as a recruiting officer of Company I, Second U. S. Colored 
artillery, with Lieutenant B. Halley of Company K, 61st U. S. 
colored infantry, boldly ran among the guns, charging one with 
canister shot and fired it at thirty paces into the flank of For- 
rest's escort just then passing, Private Tom McCord, of the 
escort, with his horse receiving the entire charge of thirteen 
canister shots, by reason of which he lost his leg. Mr. McCord 
was living until recently in Bedford County, Tennessee, wearing a 
wooden leg as a souvenir of this terrible experience. His horse was 
literally torn to pieces. This brave negro sergeant, Thacker, 
was a half hour later seriously wounded in the fighting in 
front of the State Female College and at a barricade across 
College Avenue, between the college and Elmwood Cemetery. 

It is proper now to give some statements of the Federal 
side of this unique conflict and to this end excerpts will be 
made from the reports of several of the Federal commanders. 
General C. C. Washburn, commanding the district of Tennessee 
and whose capture was one of the main purposes of this dash 
into the city, after stating that General Forrest had attacked 
the city on the morning of August 21, with 2,500 or 3,000 men, 
adds: 

"A force consisting of about one-third of Forrest's com- 
mand was detached by him and ordered to dash over the pick- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 365 

ets and into the city, while the remainder engaged our forces 
outside. This detachment came in on the Hernando Road, driv- 
ing in the pickets and riding past a regiment of 100-days 
troops that was there stationed, and rode with the utmost 
rapidity to my headquarters, which they at once thoroughly 
invested, giving me barely a moment's time to escape. Another 
party rode to the Gayoso House, where they expected to find 
Major-General Hurlbut, but in this they were disappointed, he 
lodging that night with Col. A. R. Eddy, assistant quarter- 
master. Another part went to attack General Buckland's head- 
quarters, but making a mistake in the street gave him also 
time to escape." 

Col. W. H. Thurston, assistant-inspector general of the 
16th army corps, thus reports: 

"Memphis was entered about 5 a. m. by about 400 of 
Major General Forrest's command. They moved on Memphis 
by the Hernando Road, and drove in the pickets on that road. 
One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Illinois (100 days) volunteers, 
and easily broke their lines and entered the city, dividing into 
two squads of about 200 each, one under the command of Lieut. 
Colonel Logwood, the other under Jesse Forrest, or Bill For- 
rest (reports conflict) ; one squad surrounded the Gayoso 
House, the other occupied Union Street, on which Major Gen- 
eral Washburn has his headquarters and resides. Major Gen- 
eral Washburn, having been notified by Colonel Starr, 6th 
Illinois cavalry, of their approach, left his residence as early 
as possible, and made his way to Fort Pickering, without hav- 
ing given any command as to what should be done by our 
troops. He could much more easily have retired to headquar- 
ters of provost guard than to have gone to the fort, as the 
fort is full one-half mile from his house, and but three squares 
to the provost marshall's office. On the 23rd the whole town 
was stampeded at about ten a. m. by a report being circulated 
that Forrest had returned in force and was again in town. It 
was the most disgraceful affair I have ever seen, and proves 
that there is demoralization and want of confidence by the 
people in our army and our army in some of its officers. No 
blame can be attached to Brig. General Buckland that I can 



366 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

hear of. On the 23rd, so far as I can learn, no Confederate 
troops were nearer than Forrest's rear, which was probably not 
less than twenty-five to thirty miles distant, and the alarm was 
probably caused by some of the troops firing off their guns 
which had been loaded since Sunday." 

The result of this daring venture was that General For- 
rest, after entering the city and demoralizing the large Federal 
army stationed here, almost to the point of panic and scaring 
their generals out of their rests at daylight, had prudently left 
the telegraph wires untouched until General A. J. Smith, with 
his army of 13,000 men, whom he had left at Oxford, Missis- 
sippi, could be thoroughly informed that he had captured Mem- 
phis, and then had them cut. General Smith, alarmed by this 
information, immediately began a rapid retreat to Memphis 
with his whole army, which was exactly what General Forrest 
had planned by this daring movement to compel him to do and 
which result he had completely accomplished. And so it was 
that General Forrest, unable to obstruct Smith's great army 
in any way on its movement into the heart of Mississippi, by 
stratagem had compelled his retreat to its starting point. 

When we consider the immense odds against Forrest it 
will be realized that this was one of the most brilliant moves 
of his career. Only Forrest could have conceived and executed 
it. As to the forces engaged, the report of Major General 0. 
0. Howard, inspector-general of that military department, 
shows that the Federal force in Memphis from the return of 
August 24, exceeded eighteen thousand men, including those 
with General A. J. Smith at Oxford. This report was made to 
General Ilalleck by General Howard on August 24, 1864. The 
field returns for September 1, 1864, shows that General Smith 
had with him present for duty 8,427 infantry, rank and file, 
and the report of General Washburn, dated September 22, 
shows that he had in addition to this 4,800 cavalry, making 
a total force of 13,227 in Smith's army at Oxford when For- 
rest left the front of it to attack Memphis. Deducting this 
from the eighteen thousand and odd hundred men reported by 
General Howard, as stated above, we find that on August 24, 
there was a force of 5,000 infantry encamped in Memphis, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 367 

besides cavalry, reported by Lieutenant Colonel George Duf- 
field, commanding the Second brigade, as 650 troopers. There 
were also 2,000 armed and equipped militia present for duty 
as shown by the report of Brig. General C. W. Dustan, their 
commander, the report also being signed by Captain Alfred 
G. Tuther, A. A. A. G., our late prominent citizen. This gave 
a total Federal force in the city of 7,650 infantry and cavalry, 
besides numerous batteries of artillery and the garrison of the 
great fort or fortress at Fort Pickering. 

As above stated, the troops brought to Memphis by Gen- 
eral Forrest were detachments of the Second Missouri and 
Eighteenth Mississippi regiments of McCulloch 's brigade ; the 
12th, 14th and 15th Tennessee cavalry regiment of Neely's 
brigade and Russell's and Newsom's regiments of Bell's bri- 
gade. These detachments from said regiments were of picked 
men, having serviceable horses, deemed able to stand the 
fatigues of the long ride in the rain and numbered all told, 
about 1,475 effective men, of which not exceeding 500 entered 
the city, the remainder staying with General Forrest to cover 
the retreat. The operation against Memphis was brilliantly 
conceived by her great cavalry commander Forrest and bril- 
liantly carried out, the exploit costing him a total of nine killed 
and twenty-six wounded. The losses of the Federal forces 
were reported by General Washburn as fifteen killed, sixty- 
five wounded and one hundred sixteen captured. But the 
detailed report of the several commanders show the total losses 
to have been two hundred and seventy-three killed, wounded 
and missing. Of these one battery alone, the 7th Wisconsin, 
which was run over at the outset in the charge, lost four killed, 
two wounded and nine prisoners, besides 64 artillery horses. 
General Forrest, after the fighting was over, retired leisurely 
to Hernando, Mississippi and thence to his command at Oxford. 
In return for courtesies extended him by General Forrest, 
through Adjutant General J. P. Strange, in sending back his 
uniform and sword. General Washburn had made a beautifully 
engraved sword of the highest finish and sent it as a present 
to Major Strange. This sword is now in the possession of the 
daughter of Major Strange, Mrs. W, R. Barksdale, of this city. 



368 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

The subsequent military history of Memphis during the 
remainder of the War Between the States has been fully 
treated in the chapters on municipal history in previous pages 
of this book. After the close of the war the military history 
of Memphis is continued in the achievement of her celebrated 
militia companies, the Chickasaw Guards and Bluff City Grays 
and later organizations, which will now be briefly described. 

The Chickasaw Guards became, possibly, the most famous 
militia organization in the United States, owing to its wonder- 
ful efficiency in drill and discipline, they having in their 
career overcome in competitive drill and inspection nearly all 
the most noted bodies of citizen soldiery in the land. 

This company was organized on the 30th day of June, 
1874. Its officers were R. P. Duncan, captain; W. P. Martin, 
first-lieutenant ; James R. Wright, second-lieutenant ; P. A. 
Ralston, third-lieutenant; John Poston, ensign; and L. Mix, 
sergeant. The company was unfortunate in its first competi- 
tive drill and was defeated by the Porter Rifles of Nashville 
in May, 1875, but being reorganized in October of the same 
year and with R. P. Duncan as captain ; S. T. Carnes, first 
lieutenant; T. A. Lamb, second lieutenant; and J. S. Richard- 
son, third lieutenant, they retrieved their reputation and easily 
defeated their late antagonists. 

In May, 1878, S. T. Carnes became captain and the Chick- 
asaws in the same month defeated the Bluff City Grays of 
Memphis, a noted company of that day. In September of the 
same year, when they drilled at St. Louis, against the best ten 
companies in the United States, they were overcome by but 
one point in a possible 300 by Company C of Chicago. After 
exhibition drills at Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Chica- 
go and Louisville to raise money to aid the yellow-fever suffer- 
ers in Memphis, they took first prize at a great drill at Chat- 
tanooga, Carnes still being captain and N. B. Camp, Harry 
Allen and W. L. Clapp, lieutenants. In October, 1879, the 
Chickasaws were pitted against a field of eight companies at 
St. Louis and won first prize over all. A few days later they 
were first in another prize competition at Columbus, Ohio, and 
on May 19, 1880 defeated the Rock City Guards and Porter 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 369 

Rifles of Nashville and Company K of St. Louis, at the former 
city. At New Orleans in 1881, the Chickasaws defeated the 
Crescent Rifles, League Guards and Nichols Rifles of New 
Orleans, the Mobile Rifles and the Houston Light Guards. 
Harper's Weekly of July 2, 1881 published a cut of the Chick- 
asaw Guards in line, with this legend: "The Chickasaw 
Guards of Memphis have now the reputation by decision of 
West Point officers of being the most perfectly drilled company 
of citizen soldiery in the United States. In 1879 General Sher- 
man witnessed their drill at the contest in St. Louis and pro- 
nounced them superior to anything in or out of West Point." 

The Drill Teams of 1878 and 1879 were taken from the 
following list: 

Sam T. Carnes, captain ; N. B. Camp, 1st lieutenant ; Harry 
Allen, 2nd lieutenant; W. L. Clapp, 3rd lieutenant; Richard 
Wright, 1st sargeant; T. A. Lamb, 2nd sargeant; A. R. Tay- 
lor, 3rd sargeant; R. W. Harris, 4th sargeant; S. A. Pepper, 
5th sargeant; W. W. Talbot, 1st corporal; Jno. C. Henderson, 
2nd corporal; Sam J. Hayes, 3rd corporal; A. H. Proudfit, 
4th corporal. Privates: Allen Asher, Richard H. Allen, Jno. 
Bradley, Henry J. Bailey, J. W. Clapp, Jr., Walter C. Chides- 
ter, A. L. Duval, L. R. Donelson, Howard Edmonds, J. B. 
Jones, Pete Jones, Chas. Joseph, Walter M. Johnson, Tom 
Johnson, C. H. Raine, John Sanoner, Ralph Semmes, John S. 
Speed, W. J. Steel, W. A. Sneed, T. H. Allen, Jr., B. I. Busby, 
Lamar Chappell, Haze Chiles, Geo. W. Crook, C. Q. Harris, 
Harry A. Hunter, Joe B. Houehens, Fred Hessig, James Kirk- 
land, John Kirtland, I. F. Peters, James Proudfit, S. H. 
Phillips, H. J. Parrish, Chas. Patton, P. C. Smith, John W. 
Tyler, Will Warren, Chas. M. Waldran, John D. Waldran, L. 
B. Wright, T. A. Wright, Tom A. White, J. A. Wooldridge, 
R. T. Cooper, Jefferson Davis, Jr., Sam I. McDowell, Branch 
Martin, John Newsom. 

On June 28, 1882, however, the Chickasaws were defeated 
by the Crescent Rifles of New Orleans, but in the same drill 
defeated the Porters of Nashville and the Quapaw Guards of 
Little Rock. At Indianapolis on July 5, 1882, the Chickasaws 
defeated the Crescent Rifles, Porter Rifles, Quapaw Guards, 



370 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Asbury Cadets of Indiana, Indianapolis Light Infantry, Com- 
pany K, of St. Louis and McKean Cadets of Terra Haute, 
Indiana. In the drill at Louisville the Chickasaws won the 
championship of Tennessee by defeating the Porter Rifles and at 
Indianapolis the championship of the United States. Owing 
to weather conditions the Chickasaws met with bad luck in 
1885 at Mobile and New Orleans. 

Among the noted militia companies of Memphis of that 
day were the Bluff City Grays, organized October 1, 1876, with 
J. F. Cameron, captain ; F. T. Edmondson, first-lieutenant ; T. 
C. Rogers, second-lieutenant. In 1879 J. F. Cameron was still 
captain ; Herbert Rhett, first-lieutenant ; Hugh Pettit, second 
lieutenant; and R. B. Armour, second lieutenant. In 1880 T. 
A. Lamb was elected captain and was followed by Herbert 
Rhett in 1881. 

The Memphis Light Guards, thirty-eight strong, were 
organized July, 1877. The officers were E. B. Moseley, captain; 
E. M. Apperson, Jr., first lieutenant ; and II. S. Trezevant, sec- 
ond lieutenant. This company was consolidated with the Bluff 
City Grays in 1882 and l)ecame the Porter Guards with J. D. 
Waldran, captain ; Kellar Anderson, first lieutenant ; II. G. 
Getchell, second lieutenant; M. T. Cooper, third lieutenant. 

Another company called the Porter Reserves, was organ- 
ized in 1879 during the epidemic, with Frank Lamont, captain 
and W. J. Freeman, G. M. Guerrant and W. J. Jones, lieuten- 
ants. It disbanded in about two years. 

In June, 1882, the Waldran Guards were organized with 
L. V. Dixon, captain, and E. C. Campbell, T. Hawkins and C. 
Kellar, Jr., lieutenants. This company was disbanded after 
a year or two's service. Another company called the Memphis 
Light Infantry was organized in May, 1885, with B. F. Hollen- 
berg, captain, but was disbanded soon after. 

In September, 1886, the Memphis Zouaves were organized 
with F. K. Deffry as captain; Charles J. Rauch, James D. 
Proudfit and B. C. Sawtelle, as lieutenants. 

These companies were organized and fostered with little 
or no authority of law, Tennessee having no settled militia 
laws at that time, but in 1887 on act was passed providing for 




Of iySe.lK/fmn, /IBro.Ny 




History of Memphis, Tennessee. 371 

a thorough organization of the militia and the Second Regi- 
ment of State militia was organized, in which there were four 
Memphis companies. Of this regiment S. T. Carnes was elected 
Colonel, and when he was elected Brigadier General of the 
State Militia in 1889, Hugh Pettit was elected Colonel and A. 
R. Taylor became Lieut. Colonel of the regiment and I. F. 
Peters, Major. In this regiment were four Memphis companies, 
namely, Company A, the Chickasaw Guards, Junior, Captain 
W. A. Kyle ; Company B, Neeley Zouaves, F. K. Deffrey, cap- 
tain; Company F, the Forrest Rifles, Wright Smith, captain; 
Company G, Kellar Anderson, captain, was nominally attached 
to this regiment but was on detached service during the Coal 
Creek troubles in 1891 and 1892. During the insurrection of 
the miners at Coal Creek, Captain Kellar Anderson was 
appointed to command the forces there after the return of 
the main body of the militia which had been present there 
under the command of General S. T. Carnes and Colonel A. R. 
Taylor and was in command of the fort or redoubt overlooking 
Coal Creek during the skirmishing with the miners in the 
vicinity of the fort. Two boys were killed in these disturb- 
ances, namely, Lee Waterman, Junior, killed by the prema- 
ture discharge of a howitzer, and Private Smith, who was way- 
laid and shot by the insurgents while on post as a picket. In 
1894 Colonel A. R. Taylor was elected Brigadier General, the 
term of Brig. General S. T. Carnes, having expired. All of the 
officers of the Second regiment resigned and the regiment and 
companies led an anomolous existence for several years with- 
out regular organization. 

At the beginning of the Cuban War in 1898 the Second 
regiment was reorganized, with Kellar Anderson as Colonel, 
T. E. Patterson, Lieutenant Colonel and M. E. Walker and 
F. K. Deffrey, Majors. 

The Memphis companies in the regiment at this time num- 
bered three, commanded respectively by George A. Chighizola, 
W. R. Derrick and John Hampton as captains. The regiment, 
however, never reached the front, being kept on garrison or 
post duty during the remainder of the war, but Colonel Kellar 
Anderson, its commander, was transferred to the Forty-seventh 



372 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

United States infantry as major, and served through the 
remainder of the Spanish War in the Philippines. 

After the Cuban War the Fifth Tennessee regiment was 
disbanded and the Second regiment was reorganized, taking 
part of the Fifth regiment, and Captain J. W. Canada of the 
latter regiment was made colonel. In the Second regiment 
after reorganization there were three Memphis companies, 
namely. A, the Neely Zouaves, Captain Kit Deffrey ; E. Frazier 
Rifles, Captain John Hampton; 1, Forrest Rifles, Captain Sin- 
gleton; and M, Governor's Guards, formerly commanded by 
Captain Canada. 

About 1906 Company G, the Patterson Guards, were 
organized by Captain Hearn Tidwell, of Memphis, giving Mem- 
phis five companies in the regiment. 

In 1908 the Second regiment was again reorganized, being 
consolidated with the First regiment and taking the name of 
the latter. This regiment now contains all the Middle and 
West Tennessee companies, the companies retaining the same 
letter designation. The first colonel of the new regiment was 
W. C. Tatum of Nashville, the lieutenant colonel R. L. Beare 
and the majors, C. P. Simonton of Covington, J. B. Horton of 
Memphis and R. E. Martin. 

During the Reel Foot Lake disturbances, growing out of 
the night riding of people living on the banks of Reel Foot 
Lake, two Memphis companies were detached for special ser- 
vice under Major Horton; Company E, Frazier Light Guards, 
under Captain B. L. Capell, and Lieutenants Ike Rosser and 
Jack Starr; and Company L, Captain James W. Hunt, with 
Lieutenants Allen H. Miller and George W. Peters. Captain 
Ed. W. Kinney was on special duty for these companies. Major 
Horton 's staff was composed of Lieutenant W. L. Terry, Adju- 
tant, and Second Lieutenant, Arch Well, Quartermaster. 
While at Reelfoot Lake the battalion was engaged in post and 
picket duty, scouting and arresting night-riders, in aid of the 
civil authorities. Colonel Tatum, commander of the regiment, 
died and was succeeded by Col. Tom C. Halbert, and Major 
Horton resigned in 1909. Capt. Roane Waring, regimental 
quartermaster, was promoted to Lieut. Colonel, taking the 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 373 

place of Colonel Beare. W. L. Terry of Memphis, Otto Rob- 
inson of Clarksville and John Samuels of Nashville were com- 
missioned as majors, the latter taking the position of Major 
R. E. Martin, resigned. Captain Tidwell resigned and was 
succeeded by John D. Martin as commander of Company 6, 
and Captain Martin resigning, was succeeded by Captain 
George Hoppe. In Company E, Capt. Ben Capell resigned and 
was succeeded by Capt. M. L, Rawitzer. The regiment and 
companies still retain this organization. 



t- 



CHAPTER XVII 



Transportation 




ITUATED as Memphis is river transportation has natur- 
ally been an important mode of travel for the vicinity, 
both passenger and traffic. In the early days traveling 
on the river was chiefly accomplished on flat-boats and, 
although that was very slow, it was better than land travel. 
It has been shown in another part of this work how important 
the flat-boat trade was until far into the Nineteenth Century. 
These boats only floated downstream and, after their produce 
and lumber of which they were built, were disposed of, if the 
owners wished to go back it was necessary to go on foot or 
horseback. 

There were trails of travel — many of these being old Indi- 
an trails — for pedestrians and horses and there were many 
long journeys made by foot. Very early in the century travel- 
ing through the woods was unsafe to traveler and property, 
because of wild beasts and robbers, though the trip was often 
made from here to Baltimore on horseback, as the travel was 
quicker than by river, even on the occasional steamboats. It 
was necessary to employ a guide to conduct the traveler through 
the wilderness from Memphis to Jackson, Tennessee, pilot and 
passenger going well armed for protection. But even precau- 
tion did not prevent frequent cases of robbery and murder. 
Robbers also infested the trails along the river, that they might 
plunder returning flatboatmen, having with them the gains of 
their sales. 

These robberies became so frequent that the boatmen 
organized companies and made their return trips in large 
numbers, well armed for battle. Flatboats also often descended 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 375 

the river in fleets and the landing of one of these companies 
made quite a stir in young Memphis and her environs, farm- 
ers' v^agons coming in from all directions to patronize the 
owners of the boats. 

But when the prow of the steamboat began to plough the 
yellow waters of the Mississippi River as commercial and 
freighting craft the destiny of the little city on the lower 
Chickasaw bluffs was assured. 

It is true that one steamboat, the New Orleans, the first 
on inland waters, was built and puffed down the great river 
past the bluffs before Overton, Jackson and Winchester had 
laid off the town of Memphis. This steamer was constructed 
at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, the boat being launched March 
17, 1811, and left that port October 20, 1811 for New Orleans, 
only four years after the trial trip of Robert Fulton's boat 
the Clermont, in 1807. Wlien the New Orleans passed the Bluffs 
in December, 1811, the great New Madrid earthquake was 
prevailing along the river, the banks were caving, the timber 
falling into the stream and islands disappearing before their 
eyes. Nature seemed, with all her awful forces, to protest 
against the installation of steam power on the great inland 
river. 

After the voyage of the New Orleans there was little steam 
navigation for some years but about the time Memphis was 
incorporated in 1827, numbers of steamers were plying the 
waters of the river. By 1835 the list had increased to over 
two hundred and many of the boats were of pretentious size 
and luxurious accommodations. 

About this time also several steamboat disasters occurred 
at or near Memphis. The Helen McGregor, a Louisville and 
New Orleans packet, on February 24, 1830, exploded her boil- 
ers at the landing here, killing fifty people, many of them citi- 
zens of Memphis, and injuring as many more. On April 9, 
1832, the Brandywine was burned just above the city, in which 
disaster one hundred seventy-five lives were lost and on May 
15, 1835, the Majestic blew up at the Memphis landing, in 
which accident fifty-six passengers were killed or seriously 
injured. 



376 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Between 1840 and 1850, lines of steamers were established 
between Memphis and Cincinnati, Memphis and Louisville and 
Memphis and New Orleans, and a little later a line was placed 
between Memphis and St. Louis. Between 1850 and 1860 lines 
Were also established between Memphis and Nashville, Little 
Rock, Vicksburg, Napoleon, Arkansas, and up the "White, St. 
Francis and Arkansas Rivers. Captain Ad. Storm was the 
pioneer in the Little Rock trade in 1858. 

The splendor of the Mississippi River packet service was 
maintained largely in the fifties by the great St. Louis and 
New Orleans and Louisville and New Orleans steamers which, 
when the stage of water would permit, sent out such palatial 
stearers as the Eclipse, A. L. Shot well, Diana, Southerner, 
Moselle, Ingomar, H. R. W. Hill and Pennsylvania and in the 
bends by the splendid packets Daniel Boone, Capitol, Kate 
Frisbee, Glendale and the first Belle Memphis. The larger of 
these steamers were never surpassed for luxury and speed and 
the visits of the rich planters to this port on steamers bearing 
great cargoes of cotton and from the lower coast sugar and 
molasses, rapidly brought Memphis to the front as a trading 
port of vast importance. 

In the semi-decade, 1865 to 1870, following the War 
Between the States, when the cotton and sugar plantations 
were reopened, even greater steamers began to ply the Missis- 
sippi and carry its commerce to the doors of Memphis. Among 
these the most splendid were the Great Republic and its suc- 
cessor, the Grand Republic, the largest and most beautiful 
craft ever seen on western waters, the Imperial, the Richmond, 
the Natchez, the Robert E. Lee, the Mary Belle, the James 
Howard, the J. M. White, the Mississippi, the Von Puhl and a 
score of others of almost equal note. 

The Lee and Natchez were famous for speed and made the 
celebrated race from New Orleans to St. Louis in 1870, which 
resulted in a victory for the Lee and gave her the certificate 
as the fastest steamboat that ever turned a wheel on the 
Mississippi River. 

In the last half of the sixties there were a large number 
of steamboat lines terminating at the Memphis wharf, among 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. ^11 

them, the Memphis and Ohio River Packet Company, the 
Arkansas River Packet Company, Southern Transportation 
Company, White River Line, Hatchie River Line, Mississippi 
River Line, St. Francis River Line, New Orleans Line, Osceola 
and Hailes Point Packet Company, Memphis & Friars Point 
Line and Memphis and Forked Deer River Line. 

As a matter of interest to the host of river men in Mem- 
phis and many of the old inhabitants, the steamers running in 
these lines at those dates will be given : In the Arkansas 
River Line were the T. H. Allen, Ozark, Caldwell, Fort Smith, 
Fort Gibson, American, Guidon and Clarksville. In the White 
River trade were the Natoma, Desarc, Liberty Number 3, May- 
flower, Commercial, Legal Tender and R. P. Walt. The St. 
Louis Line had the Belle of Memphis, Marble City, City of 
Cairo, Belle St. Louis and City of Alton. The Friars Point 
Line ran the G. W. Cheek, Dan Able, A. J. White and General 
Anderson. The steamer St. Francis ran to the St. Francis 
River. The Memphis and New Orleans Line had the Belle Lee 
and Magenta. The Arkansas River Packet Co., in addition 
to those named above ran later the Mary Boyd, Pat Cleburne, 
R. P. Walt, J. S. Denham, Dardanelle and Celeste. The St. 
Louis Line, in 1876, called the Anchor Line, besides the five 
above named, had added the Grand Tower, City of Vicksburg, 
City of Chester, Julia, Colorado, St. Joseph and Rubicon ; Inde- 
pendent New Orleans Line, Richmond and Mollie Able ; Forked 
Deer Line, Sallie V. ; Cincinnati Line, Alice Dean, Robert 
Bums, Silver Moon, Sam J. Hale and ]\Iinneola ; White River 
Line, Hard Cash, Chickasaw, Alberta, St. Francis, Belle, Ella 
and Milt Harry. 

The first Memphis road on record was ordered by the 
County Court in 1820, when Thomas H. Person, Charles Hol- 
man, Joshua Fletcher, M. B. Winchester, J. C. McLemore and 
William Irvine were authorized to "mark out a road from 
Memphis to the county line, in the direction of the settlement 
on Forked Deer River."* 

The next year another road was made from Memphis to 

♦Vedder. 



378 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

a settlement on Big Creek and Loosahatchie and on to Forked 
Deer River. The men who established this important road 
were Jesse Benton, John Ralston, John Reeves, Robert Meck- 
leberry, D. C. Treadwell, Nathaniel Kimbrough, Edward Brad- 
ley, E. Deason and F. Kimbrough.* 

In 1827 there was only one long wagon road to Memphis, 
called The Great Alabama and State Line Road, but despite 
its high-sounding name it was a very poor road, and almost 
an impassible one in spring. Later in this year a road was 
cut out to Somerville, Tennessee, through Raleigh, but was 
not completed for two or more years. 

In 1829 roads were more numerous and, although still 
only dirt roads and usually very muddy or very dusty, received 
more attention and w^ere constantly being improved. This 
year a line of stage coaches was established via. Nashville, 
Charlotte, Reynoldsburg and Jackson, to Memphis. These 
stages ran three times a week, making travel easier and there- 
fore more frequent, while each coach brought happiness to 
many and strengthened business by delivering the mail. 

A year later, when the Somerville road was completed, 
James Brown & Company started a line of four-horse post 
coaches, the starting of which made a great epoch in Memphis 
history, t 

As land travel improved river facilities became better 
also and some very handsome steamboats began to ply the 
river and improvements grew apace. 

The Gazette, a small news sheet of the time, had these words 
in the issue of April 30, 1830: "The facilities of intercourse 
are increasing daily by the construction of bridges, turnpikes, 
the running of stages and steamboats and the astonishingly 
improved moral condition of the people." 

Railroads at this time constituted a new mode of travel 

and were yet only heard-of accommodations to most Memphis 

people, though a few of her inhabitants had not only seen the 

trains but had ridden on them. The total railroad mileage in 

the United States at that time was twenty-three miles, but 

*Vedder. 

tOld Folks Record. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 379 

even as early as 1830 some of the progressive men of Memphis 
endeavored to get a railroad line here. 

By 1834 stages had become very lucrative and were for- 
midable rivals to the steamboats, especially as they were con- 
sidered safer. Numerous steamboat explosions in the early 
thirties had taken hundreds of lives, which put the boats into 
disrepute with many people. 

At this time a line of packets ran between Memphis and 
New Orleans, making two trips a month, and independent 
boats were numerous, so that river accommodations were to be 
had every week. 

In 1835 some Memphis and LaGrange citizens appealed 
for a charter to build a railroad between Memphis and 
LaGrange and obtained it, but before really getting a railroad 
much more work had to be done than obtaining the charter. 
Some subscriptions were raised in Memphis but the enterprise 
met with much opposition, as all new ventures do, and work 
was not begun on the road until 1838. It progressed slowly 
and in 1842, six miles had been completed. 

This road entered the city on Washington Street and Mr. 
Vedder says that "where the street crosses Main the cut was 
so deep as to require a bridge." The rails were of bar-iron 
laid on longitudinal beams or ''stringers," and these were 
laid on transverse ties. This road, never finished, proved more 
a curiosity and pleasure scheme than a business advantage and 
after operating a few months, failed. 

Later the road was lengthened and its projectors again 
tried to make it a success, but Memphis was not ready for rail- 
roads and this venture was followed by failure also. 

These failures confirmed the timid in their belief that 
railroads were not feasible and discouraged some who had 
favored them before, so that it was impossible to arouse enough 
interest to secure another line for several years, though the 
public-spirited tried to make the people understand the import- 
ance of this new mode of transportation in building up a place. 
That railroads had become popular throughout the coun- 
try was evidenced by the fact that in 1840 the mileage in the 
United States had increased to 2,888 miles, and by 1849 to 



380 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

7,365 miles. But by this latter date Memphis had herself 
become such a convert that she was said to lead Tennessee 
towns in her quota of railroad increase. 

In 1846 the "Mississippi and Tennessee Railroad Company- 
was chartered. 

During this same year a line of boats was established 
between Memphis and Louisville, with trips every three days, 
and a packet line between Memphis and New Orleans started, 
first with two well-fitted boats which were soon increased to 
four and later to six, each of these making the trip every two 
weeks. 

The river was now used for long trips or as the starting 
place of long trips, and in 1845 the "Muskingum" arrived in 
Memphis, this boat having left Cincinnati for Liverpool, Eng- 
land. It took her forty-seven days to make the trip. The 
"Marietta" of Marietta, Ohio, and bound for Boston, Massa- 
chusetts, arrived at ]\Iemphis, March 21, 1846, and then con- 
tinued successfully on her long journey. 

In the latter forties there was much agitation of a rail- 
road from Memphis to Charleston, South Carolina, one of the 
prime leaders in this movement being ex-Governor James C. 
Jones. This road succeeded in getting a charter in 1846, but 
not until 1850 did the enterprise bear fruit. In that year the 
Memphis & Charleston Railroad Company bought the charter 
of the Memphis and LaGrange road and commenced work. 
The state appropriated $2,202,000 for this road and Memphis 
subscribed $500,000 toward its building. But the work was 
slow and not completed until 1857. Its completion brought 
about one of the greatest demonstrations the Bluff City ever 
had, which has been described in the general histdry. 

During the years in which the Memphis and Charleston 
road was being put through, other railroads for connecting 
Memphis with different points were agitated and on October 
23, 1849, a convention was held in the Exchange Building for 
the purpose of considering a railroad from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific. Delegates attended this convention from Louis- 
iana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, 
Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, Vir- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 381 

ginia, South Carolina and Tennessee. Commodore M. F. 
Maury of the United States Navy was chairman of this conven- 
tion and Colonel Jefferson Davis was an enthusiastic member 
from Mississippi. Colonel Keating says, **Mr. Davis was a 
zealous advocate of a transcontinental line of railway in the 
Senate and as Secretary of War. During his tenure of the 
latter office as a member of President Pierce's cabinet he 
ordered and organized a survey for such a line under Captain 
George B. MeClellen (afterwards Major-General) within the 
limits of latitude indicated by the resolution adopted by the 
convention as expressive of its objects and purposes." 

The fifties saw much progress in railroads and Colonel 
Keating called 1852 the railroad year in Memphis, as so many 
roads were projected and much work done on lines already 
begun. One of these was the Mississippi and Tennessee Rail- 
road, chartered by Mississippi and Tennessee. For this pro- 
ject Tennessee made a loan of $97,500 and Memphis subscribed 
$250,000 of the stock. 

At the same time the Memphis and Ohio Railroad was pro- 
jected from Memphis to Louisville and the first section com- 
pleted about 1855. The name of this road was subsequently 
changed on being absorbed by the Louisville and Nashville, 
which has become a great system. 

In 1853 the Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted 
$350,000 for a railroad to Little Rock, Arkansas. 

As railroads were being extended in all directions over 
the country Memphis was recognized by many as the most 
central point for an eastern terminus of the proposed Pacific 
railroad. Colonel J. T. Trezevant wrote of this: 

' ' Memphis is nearer to the South Atlantic and Gulf States 
than any town on the Mississippi above the mouth of the Ohio, 
and nearer to the North Atlantic and Lake cities than any 
town on the river below the mouth of the Ohio, In other 
words, Memphis is that point in the Mississippi Valley where 
the lake, the Atlantic and the Gulf cities can, and soon will, 
meet by the shortest and most direct line of railroad." 

Colonel Trezevant was enthusiastic over railroads and 
had succeeded in convincing people in his speeches and other- 



382 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

wise, but many were still sore over the LaGrange failure and 
this kept some from lending help that might otherwise have 
done so. 

However, time proved the necessity of keeping up with 
the whole country and also proved Memphis to be the most 
central city of the South or Southwest for a connecting link 
between West and East, South and North. 

Coal, iron and other minerals were discovered in the East 
Tennessee mountains and this discovery, by aid of the rail- 
roads, was an advantage to the whole State and section of the 
country. Southern railways increased in number and direction 
and brought more activity to the city in increased commerce, 
railway stations, yards, new employments, etc. 

The railroads injured steamboat traffic a good deal but 
the boats kept railroad rates within bound by competition and 
the balance was well maintained. The railroads also spurred 
the steamboats and they increased in numbers and improved 
accommodations until some of them were denoted "river 
palaces," where passengers had such good attention that many 
trips were taken on them just for the comfort enjoyed. 

By 1860 the railroads and improved river transportation 
had brought much prosperity to Memphis and population had 
increased so much, as well as area, that in June of that year 
Memphis citizens petitioned the council to permit the street 
railway to lay its tracks on Main Street, and several years 
later, after much dallying, street-car service became one of the 
the city conveniences. 

The war of course affected transportation of all kinds. 
Of the river Mr. Vedder said that "the period from 1850 
to 1861 was the most extensive and profitable in the history 
of navigation upon the Mississippi and its tributaries," but 
that "the four years of war following 1861 caused almost an 
entire suspension of legitimate river commerce." 

After the war river commerce and passenger transporta- 
tion were resumed but never regained the precedence of ante 
bellum days. One of the first river lines to resume regular 
traffic after the sectional upheaval was the Memphis and St. 
Louis Packet Company, with six first-class boats. In 1876 



History of Memphis, Temiessee. 383 

this line was extended to Vicksburg, Mississippi, and called 
the St. Louis & Vicksburg Anchor Line. In 1883 it was again 
extended, this time to New Orleans, and called the St. Louis 
& New Orleans Anchor Line. 

Other lines were inaugurated and did good business. One 
of the most important of these was the first line of steamers 
from Memphis to Friar's Point, Mississippi, established by 
James Lee, Sr., in 1866. His son became a partner and this 
company ran a number of boats with such success that the 
line continued to grow until it became one of the most noted 
lines on inland water. The senior James Lee was identified 
with Mississippi Valley river traffic for over fifty years, until 
1885, when he retired. But the Lee Line continued under the 
Lees and is today, — nearly fifty years after the establishment 
of the line, — one of the most successful and noted on the 
river, its growth having been a part of Memphis history. 

In 1870 there were forty steamboats enrolled and owned 
at Memphis, with a tonnage of 10,306. During the year ten 
boats had been sunk and two dismantled. 

The total import of cotton by river had been during the 
year ending June, 1870, 115,730 bales and the export, 
162,343.* 

During the War Between the States railroads had been so 
wrecked that it was some time before people had energy or 
means to push railroads or any other enterprises, but before 
many years tracks begun to go down in different directions 
and by 1870 several of these were under way. In 1871 the 
Memphis and Little Rock road was completed and was an 
accomplishment of great satisfaction to the two cities at its 
termini. The Selma, Marion and Memphis, later the Kansas 
City, Memphis and Birmingham railroad was organized by 
General Forrest under an efficient board of directors and 
Memphis subscribed $200,000 to the Mississippi River Railroad. 
Shelby County subscribed $50,000 to the Raleigh Railroad 
and its little train made Raleigh Springs a popular resort to 
Memphians. A Memphis union station was also contracted for, 

♦Vedder. 



384 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the many railroads coming to and leaving Memphis at that 
time requiring it. 

In 1873 all energetic business action in Memphis had a 
check when the epidemic and financial panic prostrated the 
city, the latter catastrophe extending throughout the country. 

Some of the projected railroads were never revived and 
some other not for years. The Mississippi River Railroad, which 
was under contract but had been stopped, was resumed and 
finished, but some others that had been begun were left in 
their unfinished condition. 

After all the epidemics were over and the Taxing Dis- 
trict launched in its government, railroads grew so rapidly 
here that it would be tedious to follow them all, but each road 
filled an important part of the city's growth, and smoke and 
noise of many engines means expansion and prosperity to city 
commerce, and manufacturing grew as quick transportation 
came to hand. Memphis handled more and more of the pro- 
ducts of the states surrounding her and was the center of 
long shipments from and to all directions. She became a rail- 
road center of importance to the whole country and by 1887, 
eight trunk lines, or main branches of trunk lines entered here 
and seventy-six trains arrived and departed daily to and from 
the city, carrying millions of dollars worth of products. 

City transportation had also received its share of attention. 
Soon after the War Between the States citizens reverted to 
interest in street-cars and in 1865 the Citizens Street Railroad 
Company was chartered and incorporated with these gentle- 
men as incorporators : Messrs. Wm. M. Farrington, presi- 
dent; Wm. R. Moore, I. M. Hill, S. B. Beaumont, R. Hough, 
Frank Taft, G. P. Ware, S. R. Wood, Fielding Hurst, P. E. 
Bland, Joseph Bruce, Abner Taylor, Thomas R. Smith, H. B. 
Mills, Joseph W. Eystra, Wm. C. Bryan, W. P. Hepburn and 
Frank Brooks. 

The line first traversed Main Street only, with less than 
four miles of single track. On this track ran short one-mule 
cars that never became famous for their speed. The first 
extension was the red line of cars to the south gate of Elm- 
wood Cemetery, a single track with occasional switches, where 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 385 

cars waited for one another to pass, the waits often trying the 
patience of passengers. By the close of 1866 the lines had 
more widely extended and covered ten miles of track. 

The first fare charged on Memphis street-cars was five 
cents, but in 1867 it was raised to ten cents. This caused a 
great deal of dissatisfaction and it was later reduced to six 
and one-fourth cents. In 1875 it was again made five cents 
and has continued so until the present time. 

In 1869 Mr. R. C. Floyd, who published a short history of 
Memphis, wrote: "Street railways now stretch to all parts 
of the city, making travel from the Memphis and Louisville 
Railroad depot, in the northern part of the city, even as far 
as Elmwood Cemetery in the furthermost southern limit, cheap 
and speedy." 

That travel would be far from "speedy" to us today, but 
it was an accommodation then so superior to walking that 
people without private vehicles considered the tinkling bell of 
the street-car mule indicative of time saved and comfort 
enjoyed, even as the whirr of the electric car indicates to us 
today. 

Differences arose among men interested in the street-car 
lines which ended in litigation that brought much disturbance 
and enmity. The car service grew to be so wretched that the 
poor cars and slow mules became a theme of ridicule. This 
went on until 1885, when a new company was organized, 
called the Citizens' Street Railway Company, with Napoleon 
Hill, president ; Sam Tate, Jr., vice-president and general man- 
ager; Raphael Semmes, superintendent; George Vance, sec- 
retary and treasurer. 

This company pushed its work and the day the new ser- 
vice was opened for the public, passengers were carried free 
all over the city, the cars being filled with merry people who 
made a gala day of this opening one. The new lines interfered 
with the old ones, paralleling them on most streets, and compe- 
tition became strong and even bitter. The new cars were 
freely patronized from the beginning and were immediately 
put on a paying basis, which forced the old company to improve 
its accommodations. 



386 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

In 1887 competition and hard feeling were ended by the 
two companies consolidating their interests, under the name 
of the Citizens' Street Railway Company. The price paid for 
the old company's property was $1,000,000, one-half in stock 
in the new company and the other half in bonds. In the reor- 
ganized company Napoleon Hill was president; Thomas Bar- 
rett, vice-president; Raphael Semmes, superintendent; S. P. 
Read, Jr., secretary and treasurer. 

Soon after this union the Main Street line was extended 
to Jackson Mound Park, which was then thrown open to the 
public and became a popular resort. 

Two years later the street-car company again changed 
hands, when Mr. C. B. Holmes of a Chicago syndicate bought 
the Citizens' Street Railway Company for $2,000,000, borrow- 
ing money for the purpose from Mr. James Billings, a Chicago 
millionaire. Later the company was about to fail when Mr. 
Billings came to Memphis to investigate the street railway 
property. He concluded that prospects here were good for 
any sort of business and pronounced Memphis the "Chicago 
of the South." He bought the street-car company's stock 
and determined to change the system to rapid transit, gained 
by means of electricity, then a comparatively new mode of 
travel rapidly growing in favor all over the world. 

Mr. Billings found his new undertaking filled with thorny 
problems and every project he proposed met with opposition. 
After months of trying to adjust matters he was about to aban- 
don all idea of starting anything in Memphis when an agree- 
ment was settled upon and, by adding new capital to the 
amount of $1,500,000, a contract with the city, by which the 
street-car company was ceded the right to all streets occupied 
by tracks for twenty-six years, with the right to erect poles, 
wires, etc., for a new electric system. This transaction passed 
in April of 1-891, and the new electric lines were rapidly insti- 
tuted. By the close of 1892 Memphis had sixty-five miles of 
street railroads with more tracks going down in many direc- 
tions. Forty miles of this distance was controlled by the 
Citizens' Street Railway Company, with its new electric lines 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 387 

on which had been established sixty motor cars and one hun- 
dred trailers. 

But steam served the city passenger traffic also. In the 
spring of 1887 the Memphis, Greenwood and Prospect Park 
Railroad Company had been organized with a capital stock of 
$100,000, for the purpose of running a small steam-railroad 
line from the city to some of the suburbs. This road was 
known as the Dummy Line and proved a great convenience 
for people living several miles from the city, especially for 
people who worked in Memphis and lived beyond the city 
limits. 

The incorporators of this company were T. J. Latham, 
president; J. A. VanHoose, vice-president and general man- 
ager; T. A. Lamb, secretary and treasurer; S. H. Lamb, E. F, 
Adams, Major John D. Adams of Arkansas, Wm. J. Smith, 
F. M. Nelson and F. H. White. 

Another steam-dummy, instituted in 1887 at a cost of 
$150,000, was the East End Railway, leaving town at Monroe 
and Third, and going through a suburban residence district 
to East End Park, a pleasure resort, and thence to Montgomery 
Park or race track. This line was an independent one under 
the management of Mr. W. M. Sneed. 

Suburban traffic became a great builder of the city in 
general and along its lines attractive residence communities 
sprang into being. Nothing helps the growth of a city more 
than her street-car service. Extension of the lines and their 
assurance of transportation enables inhabitants to have their 
homes away from the city smoke and noise, going and return- 
ing each day in short time to and from business. By 1892 
some of the residence additions of importance were Madison 
Heights, Gladstone Heights, Lenox, Ingleside, Idlewild and 
Mt. Arlington. The property in all these places was greatly 
enhanced in value by reason of the improvements accomplished 
and the certainty with which they could be reached from the 
city. 

Raleigh Springs, nine miles distant, was also brought 
seemingly close to the city by an electric line being extended 
to that attractive resort. 



388 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

The great cantilever bridge built across the river at the 
southern part of the city and completed in 1892, has already- 
been described in detail. Its value was inestimable to railroad 
traffic and it was used by several routes. During the time the 
bridge was being completed some railroad companies had spent 
thousands of dollars in the city on terminal improvements, 
among these being two new stations. 

By this time people generally recognized railroads as a 
powerful agent in progress, and Memphis had become the 
greatest railroad center of the South, besides being the tenth 
railroad city of the country. 

The ten railroads entering Memphis at that time were 
the Illinois Central, a branch of which ran from Memphis to 
Grenada, Mississippi, this road being successor to the old Mis- 
sissippi & Tennessee Railroad ; the Louisville & Nashville Rail- 
way, which afforded wide communication in many directions 
and connected Memphis with many important cities; the Mis- 
sissippi Valley Route or Louisville, New Orleans & Texas Rail- 
way ; the Iron Mountain Route of the Missouri Pacific Railway 
Company ; the Cotton Belt Route ; Kansas City, Springfield and 
Memphis, another trunk line. The Kansas City, Memphis and 
Birmingham ; East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia ; the Ten- 
nessee Midland ; the Little Rock & Memphis Railroad, con- 
necting these two cities; and the projected Belt Line, belting 
the city from the bridge at the southern extremity to Wolf 
River in the north, and connecting all lines centering in Mem- 
phis. Tennessee had at that date 2,901 miles of railroad. 

Trains of these various routes entered the city at different 
points but street-cars and transfer accommodations connected 
passengers, baggage and freight with the different stations. 
Transfer companies operating at that time were the E. G. 
Robinson Transfer Company, with Mr. E. G. Robinson presi- 
dent ; and the Patterson Transfer Company, with carriage and 
omnibus departments, Mr. R. Galloway, president; Mr. P. M. 
Patterson, vice-president and Mr. B. A. Wills, secretary and 
treasurer. This company had been organized in 1856 by Mr. 
P. M. Patterson, Sr., with a line of stage coaches. When this 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 389 

mode of travel became an accommodation of the past the com- 
pany changed its function to transfering city traffic. 

Of the river pacl^et lines in the early nineties, the St. Louis 
and New Orleans Anchor Line boats had an agency in Memphis 
and landed three times north and three times south each week. 
Captain A. Storm was in charge of this line, a man of long 
river experience. This was one of the finest lines of boats that 
ever traveled the river and it was said in 1892 that it "guages 
the highest point of progress made in inland navigation." 
Its passenger boats were designated ''floating palaces," and 
equaled the ante bellum boats that had once been a glory of 
the river. It had seven boats, with Captain Isaac M. Mason 
president of the line and Captain John A. Scudder, vice-pres- 
ident. 

The Lee Line, with Captain James Lee, manager, also ran 
seven boats with 2,500 tonnage. This was a very important 
line, especially in commercial traffic up and down the Missis- 
sippi and on its tributaries. 

The Cherokee Packet Company plied two boats between 
Memphis and St. Louis at that time and had an excellent trade. 
The president of the line was Mr. Ferd Harold of St. Louis and 
the Memphis agent was Mr. H. C. Lowe. 

The Memphis, Arkansas City and Bends Packet Company 
ran one boat, the Kate Adams, between Memphis and Arkansas 
City. This boat was managed by Captain John J. Darragh and 
was one of the swiftest on the river, with 800 tonnage. It was 
a passenger, freight and mail boat. The president of the line 
was Thomas Darragh of Little Rock and the secretary and 
treasurer, J. M. Peters of Memphis. 

The Memphis & Cincinnati Packet Company had four 
regular boats and an occasional one plying the Mississippi and 
Ohio Rivers. This line had been established in 1866 and had 
been an important one since its beginning, both for passenger 
and freight carriage. F. A. Laidley of Cincinnati was president 
and Captain C. B. Russell, an old river captain, was the Mem- 
phis agent. 

The Arkansas River Packet Company, with Mr. James 



390 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Rees, president, ran two boats from Memphis to Pine Bluff, 
Arkansas, each having a tonnage of 350. 

The Memphis & White River Packet Company ran a steam- 
er on the Mississippi and White Rivers from Memphis to 
Augusta, Arkansas. Mr. Sam Brown was president of this line. 

All through the nineties railroad facilities continued to 
increase and before 1900 Memphis boasted eleven trunk lines. 
In the new century belt railways were added, with many 
miles of terminal and lineal tracks and in 1910 Memphis was 
pronounced one of the best and most important terminals in 
America, with eleven lines of railroad and two complete belt 
lines. 

Over these operate the Union Railway; Illinois Central; 
Louisville & Nashville; Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis; 
Yazoo & Mississippi Valley; Frisco; Southern Railway; St. 
Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern; St. Louis Southwestern; 
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific. 

Memphis has the best terminal, switching and freight 
facilities in the country and there is little conflict between the 
different roads as the law here requires tliat each road switch 
for every other and any switching charge is included in the 
general freight rate. 

The Bureau of Publicity and Development of Memphis 
state: "No American city is so well adapted for (luick and 
economic distribution of articles manufactured in the North 
and East and consumed in Arkansas, Mississippi, West Ten- 
nessee, Western Kentucky, Northern Alabama, Louisiana, Tex- 
as and Mexico, as Memphis." 

Delivery of freight must be made here in from one hour 
to one day, with a maximum of twenty-four hours, and this 
law is strictly enforced. 

While these improved advantages are enjoyed by the busi- 
ness world, passenger accommodations have improved even 
more than any other branch of railroad service. Once people 
traveled on railroads for quick transportation and on boats 
for comfort, but now sleepers, drawing-room, observation and 
dining-cars make railroad travel a delight as well as conveni- 
ence, as is proved by their vast patronage, while boats have 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 391 

degenerated in passenger service and the "floating palaces" 
are no more on the Mississippi River, though some prophets 
say they are coming back as inland water travel revives. 

With all the growth and improvements of railroads Mem- 
phis has continued to have poor station facilities and as travel 
and business increased in volume the necessity for a union 
station became a cry with citizens, newspapers and business 
organizations. This cry continued for many years without 
avail and Memphis, with all of her other city improvements, 
stood a laughing-stock as to railway stations, those here having 
the appearance of belonging to small towns. Finally, in 1907, 
the Memphis Railroad Terminal Company applied to the city 
authorities for an ordinance allowing them to condemn prop- 
erty, close streets and alleys and build a Union Station. The 
ordinance was elaborately drawn and met with numerous 
objections. After months of discussion it was passed but met 
with denial from the Terminal Company. This was discourag- 
ing but agitation again arose the following year, another 
ordinance was drawn up and this time accepted by the Term- 
inal Company. 

The people rejoiced at the prospect of a great central sta- 
tion benefiting a city the size and importance of Memphis, but 
again disappointment came. The railroads disagreed as to 
the share of expense each should assume and once more the 
building of a new station was abandoned. This brought such 
great disappointment to the city that there were steps taken 
to sue the Terminal Company, but a new organization was 
formed, called the Memphis Union Station Company, and they 
applied for another ordinance to build a new union station. 

This new ordinance, after much consideration and discus- 
sion was granted and approved by Mayor Malone November 
29, 1909. This to-be $3,000,000 structure was at last assured, 
but was not strictly a union station after all, as some of the 
railroads refused to join in the scheme. 

However, the great structure was begun and has since been 
completed. It is a splendid edifice and, when improvements and 
clearings are made around it, will be an ornament to Memphis 



392 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

and this part of the country. The building itself is described 
in the chapter on buildings. 

This beautiful new station was opened March 30, 1912, and 
the five roads using it for the arrival and departure of their 
trains commenced this utility on the following day. These 
roads are : the Southern Railway Company ; Louisville & Nash- 
ville Railroad Company; St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern 
Railway Company; Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Rail- 
way and the St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company. 

There are five directors of the Station Company and each 
company using the station has the privilege of selecting one 
of these directors, so that each road may have a voice in the 
management and control of the property. The first board of 
directors, who were also the incorporators were : Messrs. M. 
H. Smith, J. W. Thomas, Jr., Fairfax Harrison, C. W. Nelson, 
and J. L. Lancaster. The capital stock is owned equally by the 
five railroads. 

The present directors are : J. W. Thomas, Jr., H. B. 
Spencer, F. N. Fisher, C. W. Nelson, J. L. Lancaster, and the 
officers are: J. L. Lancaster, president; F. N. Fisher, vice- 
president ; C. R. Alexander, secretary ; H. C. Ashley, treas- 
urer; R. E. Kimball, auditor; J. W. Canada, general counsel; 
J. Werness, chief engineer ; J. A. Galvin, architect ; and W. 
F. Schultz, engineer of construction. 

Despite the fact that railroads have displaced river trade 
to an extent, business people have never lost sight of the 
immense advantages afforded by the Mississippi River and at 
the present time this great waterway is receiving much atten- 
tion. All know of the long-sought movement for making a 
deep waterway from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico 
in order that all these miles of water passage might be used 
for large boats. It is thought that this would be a great 
advantage to the whole country and Memphis would be 
one of the great centers of the vast trade so carried on, even 
as she is now such an important center of railroad traffic. 

Development of waterways is popular all over the world 
now and Germany and France especially have improved their 
water facilities very greatly. 




;, A^-^^^W^s- ^£r,Jir^ 




History of Memphis, Tennessee. 393 

Some of the European engineers declare that this country- 
has a wonderful advantage in the Mississippi and its tribu- 
taries, which might be developed into the greatest and most 
important water system on the globe. One writer says that 
"The Mississippi River and its tributaries constitute the most 
magnificent system of internal waterways on the face of the 
earth."* 

Even now it is claimed that "the river alone is equal in 
carrying capacity to 1,000 railways, and that this large capac- 
ity gives shippers the advantage of low freight rates. 

Another proposed form of river transportation is the use 
of large barges. This system had been agitated to some extent 
and in April, 1911, the first large steel barge was sent down 
the river by the ]\Iississippi Valley Transportation Company. 
One of the advantages claimed for this line is cheap freight 
nites and another, low rates of insurance. This latter, the pro- 
moters say, is obtainable on account of the superior structure 
of the barges, as they are built of steel, which makes them 
fire-proof, and in such a manner as to make them "nonsink- 
able." Mr. W. K. Kavanaugh is president of this company 
and he is also president of the Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Water- 
way Association. 

There are now 175 steamboats operating from the Mem- 
phis landings. Some of these are independent steamers but 
most of them are operated by companies. 

The Lee Line has a large number of steamers that run 
north to Ashport, Tennessee; Cairo, Illinois; St. Louis, Mis- 
souri; Cincinnati, Ohio; and south to Friar's Point and Vicks- 
burg, Mississippi. Captain R. E. Lee is the general manager 
of this line and the wharf boat is situated at the foot of Gayoso 
Avenue. 

The Little Rock Packet Company also have their wharf- 
boat at the foot of Gayoso. This line runs boats for Pine Bluff, 
Arkansas and Arkansas River landings. 

The Memphis and Arkansas City Packet Company is a 
United States mail line and have their wharf boat and office at 

•Bureau of Publicity and Development. 



394 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the foot of Union Avenue. The boat runs to Concordia and 
Arkansas City, Arkansas. 

The Planters Packet Company also land their steamer, 
City of St. Joseph, at Union Avenue. This boat goes to "White- 
hall, Arkansas. 

Railroads in the northern part of the city find it more 
expedient to transfer their trains across the river by ferry, so 
transfer boats are kept for this purpose. One of these, the 
General Price, is at the foot of Washington Avenue and trans- 
ports trains of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, 
and the other, the Little Rock & Memphis Railroad Ferry, is 
at the foot of Concord Avenue and transfers freight from 
Memphis to Hopefield, Arkansas. 

At the foot of Wisconsin Avenue lies the United States 
Government Fleet. 

The West Memphis Packet Company at the foot of Court 
Avenue, runs the steamer Charles H. Organ several times 
daily to Hopefield, Mound City, President's Island and Wyan- 
oke. This boat is much patronized by excursionists and pleas- 
ure seekers. 

Another excursion boat is the Pattona, run by the Bluff 
City Excursion Company. 

The Street Railway service has made great strides since 
we left it in 1892. A city's growth along its street-car lines has 
already been mentioned and this fact has been demonstrated 
in Memphis as street-car facilities have grown. To quote from 
the News-Scimitar of May 3, 1912: "Hundreds of comfortable 
homes have been built and beautiful residence neighborhoods 
have grown up in places where nothing but farms or vacant 
land were to be found until extensions of the street railway 
made them desirable for building sites. Every one of these new 
homes adds to the property value of the city and wealth of the 
city's population. 

"New districts have been opened to the uses of business 
by improvement of the street railway and betterment of the 
service, and every day transportation is becoming more and 
more a factor in the city's industrial and social life." 

March 28, 1895, all the street railway companies in the 




Snf lyS^U'lfAi!-^^ SBrrf/y 




/ 



I f 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 395 

city consolidated and were incorporated as the Memphis Street 
Railway Company, under a fifty year franchise, with Mr. Frank 
Jones, president. This charter brought much new street-car 
property to Memphis and improved service. 

After a decade of ownership under this organization the 
company again changed hands December 18, 1905, when the 
capital stock was increased to $2,500,000. This company does 
the entire street railway business of the city and has numerous 
lines running beyond the city limits. 

Since this last purchase and reorganization under the old 
charter, $23,500 has been spent on fenders, gates, window- 
guards and other devices for safety, while many thousands of 
dollars have been spent on improved tracks and new cars, until 
120 miles of trackage are owned by the company and 313 cars.* 

The service is at present better handled than ever before 
and a general good feeling exists between the Street Railway 
Company and the citizens in general. 

The greatest problem this company has now to meet is the 
congestion of passengers on ]\Iain Street, especially at Madison, 
but a system of loops is now under way, covering portions of 
Front and Third Streets from Union to Market Avenues, that 
will greatly help to obviate this trouble. 

The validity of the franchise of the Memphis Street Rail- 
way Company being questioned, a law suit was instigated and 
decided in favor of the company, which decision was upheld by 
the Supreme Court of Tennessee in 1907. This franchise is 
valid until 1945. 

The present officers of the Company are Mr. T. H. Tutwiler, 
president ; General Luke E. Wright, vice-president ;t Mr. W. 
H. Burroughs, secretary and treasurer, and Mr. E. W. Ford, 
superintendent. 

The directors are : Messrs. George Bullock, New York ; 
George H. Davis, New Orleans; A. H. Ford, Birmingham; 
Percy Warner, Nashville ; T. H. Tutwiler, Luke E. Wright, R. 

*These figures obtained from reports of the Street Railway Co. 
■(•General Wright took the place of his son, Major E. E. Wright, 
after his decease. 



396 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

A. Speed, W. B. Mallory, James E. Beasley, J. R. Pepper and 
Dr. W. B. Rogers, all of Memphis. 

Public highways and city streets have undergone such 
vast changes in the last quarter of a century that a volume 
could be written on their development. Street improvements 
have been somewhat elaborated on in the general history and 
roads leading from the city have received no less attention. 
Great dangerous ruts and mud-holes, large enough to drown 
animals, are no more seen in our vicinity. 

The Department of Public Highways keeps its work up to 
the standard which, in this generation, is high. Much thought 
and money have lately been spent in pushing the project of a 
highway from Memphis to Bristol, work on which has been 
begun and the West Tennessee end of the road is being rapidly 
pushed. Another project of this department is to have a first- 
class highway from Memphis, west through Eastern Arkansas, 
which it is hoped can be carried unbrokenly to Little Rock. 




. Hfii/ta/ns £^£ro. J^.' 



^>^^^.-^ 



CHAPTER XVIII 



Education 

^^■rHE charter of 1826 that incorporated Memphis made 
/ |l provision for public schools and their maintenance, 
^■^ showing that even in her earliest days Memphis had 
citizens alive to the necessity of equipping future citizens by 
giving them educational advantages; but the real establish- 
ment of schools requires more than the convictions of the few 
and the majority of the inhabitants of a new town are usually 
of the rugged sort who think first of merely physical necessi- 
ties. The moral and mental advantages are added by the few 
more profound thinkers and only by degrees become part of 
the regular system. 

So, although the first charter allowed public schools, the 
only schools Memphis knew for a number of years were private 
ventures and they were at first of a rude character, until 1831, 
when the Garner School, conducted by a teacher of that name, 
was started at the corner of Auction and Chickasaw Streets. 
This school did not continue many years but performed its 
valuable part in the upbuilding of education. 

Soon after the Garner School opened another followed, 
taught by Mr. Williams, in Court Square. He used the log 
building that had been erected for a church and had been used 
by several denominations in succession, each of which had 
outgrown the little log room and built buildings of their own, 
Mr. Williams had this rude structure weatherboarded and 
otherwise made more comfortable for his pupils. 

The next Memphis teacher of note was an Irishman, Mr. 
Eugene Magevney, a most excellent gentleman and scholar. 



398 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

His school became popular and a real force, in which were 
educated numerous boys who later became substantial citizens 
of Mempliis and several, encouraged by their teacher, pursued 
their studies in higher schools and colleges of the land. 

There were several primary schools taught by women for 
small girls and boys, but the Magevney School was the one of 
greatest note in Memphis at that time and it was only for boys. 

In 1846 the Reverend B. F. Farnsworth came to Memphis 
to take charge of a school of arts in Fort Pickering, which 
was to be a university and an educational pride to Memphis 
and to Tennessee. Dr. Farnsworth brought with him a 
valuable library, a chemical apparatus that was at that time 
the most complete in the Southwest, and a natural history 
collection that was one of the finest in the United States. 

This pretentious school occupied a building in Fort Pick- 
ering that had formerly been erected for a hotel, and provided 
departments outside of the regular literary courses for law, 
medicine and the fine arts. The Board of Trustees of this 
school comprised, Rev. B. F. Farnsworth, president ex-officio ; 
Seth Wheatley, Lewis Shanks, M. D., Geraldus Buntyn, Jeptha 
Fowlkes, M. D., Hon. Frederic P. Stanton, Henry G. Smith, 
Thomas J. Turley, Nathaniel G. Smith, Wm. A. Bickford, E. F. 
Watkins, M. D., Walter B. Morris, W. W. Hart, Dr. Wyatt 
Christian, J. J. Finley, and Thos. H. Allen, Secretary. 

In 1847 the Misses Young had a school for girls and the 
St. Agnes Academy was incorporated by the Legislature in 
February of this year, though that Catholic institution did not 
really open as a school until four years later, when its building 
was completed. 

In August, 1847, there was a teachers' convention in 
Memphis and the talks, lectures and general interest shown at 
this convention proved growth in the true spirit of teaching. 

The public school spirit had grown in favor and early in 
1848 Col. J. W. A. Pettit urged the Board of Mayor and Alder- 
men to use their right, given in the charter, and establish a 
system of free schools. His eloquence won, though the plan had 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 39y 

much opposition, and each member of the Council established a 
free school in his ward. 

Colonel Pettit, himself an alderman, opened the first of these y 
schools at the northeast corner of Third and Overton Streets, 
in the home of Mrs. Moore, whom he made teacher, and in 
April following he was allowed, after much urging on his part, 
to employ an assistant teacher at half the salary of the prin- 
cipal, the school having grown so much that an assistant was 
badly needed. 

The next public school opened was on the corner of Main 
and Overton Streets, taught by Mrs. Walker. These schools -' 
were in the first and fourth wards, and they were soon followed 
by schools in the second and third w^ards. 

Some members of the Board of Aldermen had objected to 
these schools in the beginning and, like hindering spirits, con- 
tinued to object until June, 1848, when much dissension arose 
at a board meeting, when a resolution was offered to discontinue 
the free schools. Fortunately the schools had increased in gen- 
eral favor and this resolution was voted dowTi. 

The four little schools passed the experimental period and 
on June 19th, just a few days after the above resolution to 
abandon them had been defeated, an ordinance was introduced 
and passed, making the public schools a fixture and strength- J 
ening them. "The main provisions of this ordinance were as 
follows: Section 1, divided the city into school districts; 
section 2, provided that the school tax should be one-eighth of 
the city revenue as provided by the charter, and that the 
schools were to be equally free to all white children between 
the ages of six and sixteen ; section 3, that all that part of the 
city north of Poplar Street should be the first district, and 
all that part south of Poplar Street should be the second 
district; section 4, that the board of education, then called 
the board of managers, should consist of the mayor, two alder- 
men and two citizens, one from each school district ; section 5, 
that there should be two school-houses in each district; and 



400 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

section 7, required the board of managers to report to the 
board of mayor and aldermen."* 

On August 1, 1848, the office of Superintendent of public 
schools was created and Colonel Pettit, the first superintendent, 
entered upon his duties with much earnestness and without 
compensation. 

He opened schools on Market, Poplar, Adams, Court, 
Madison, Gayoso, Main, Hernando and Third Streets and 
Brown Avenue.t 

The unselfish and successful work of Colonel Pettit has 
caused him to be called the Father of the free schools of Mem- 
phis. 

In 1850 a recommendation was made to pay the superin- 
tendent a salary and a vote on the question showed how the 
public-school spirit had broadened in two years, the vote 
giving the superintendent a salary of $600. 

Colonel Pettit was retained as superintendent and labored 
unceasingly for what he considered the most important factor 
in building up a city, and spent the money allowed, always, 
to the best possible advantage. He importuned the city 
authorities to purchase school sites while property was cheap, 
but he had poor success, as the city in later years had reason to 
regret. He worked against many disadvantages and much 
ignorance, often failing to get the support of people who would 
be most benefitted by the success of the schools. 

Colonel Pettit 's report for the year ending June, 1851, 
showed a fairly good condition of twelve schools with 580 pupils 
and an expense account for the year of $4,891.50, which some of 
the tax-payers of that generation considered not only useless, 
but a great imposition on the citizens of Memphis. 

About this time Dr. A. P. Merrill moved to Memphis from 
Natchez, Mississippi. Dr. Merrill was an ardent student of his 
profession of medicine, but he was also deeply interested in 
the subject of education for all the people. In Natchez he had 

♦Quoted by Vedder. 
tVedder. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 401 

been instrumental in starting a central public school which 
had caused much improvement in the little Mississippi city, 
commercially as well as educationally. After taking up his 
residence in Memphis Dr. Merrill became one of the public- 
spirited men of his adopted town, and did much to advance 
the cause of public education. 

Dr. Merrill's pet scheme was a large central public school 
such as Natchez had at that time, but free education in any 
form being the great need, in his opinion, he was willing to 
abandon the one central school idea and work with Memphis 
educational workers for the general good, and this man's force 
in the community did much for the cause of free schools, and 
the equal education of all classes of people. 

Colonel Pettit served as superintendent until 1852, when he 
moved to Germantown, Tennessee. He was succeeded in the 
office by Dr. Isaac Ebbert, who served the schools in this 
capacity one year. The following year Mr. J. F. Pearl took 
his place and in 1854 Mr. Pearl was succeeded by Superin- 
tendent Tarbox, who went to Nashville before his term expired. 
Mr. Tobey filled out the term and the next year, 1855, Dr. A. P. 
Merrill was persuaded to accept the position. 

The school year beginning the first Monday in September, 
1855, was auspicious and by the last of the month 1108 pupils 
had been entered in the nineteen schools, but yellow fever 
became alarming about that time and the school attendance 
continued to decrease until in a few weeks it was useless to 
try to conduct the schools with any sort of regularity. One 
school after another closed until fifteen had ceased operations, 
leaving only four running in an irregular manner. Nearly all 
the teachers had left the city and general fear prevailed among 
the parents who were left. 

On May 4, 1856, the Memphis city schools were incor- 
porated by an act of the legislature. This Act provided ''That 
immediately after the annual election and organization of the 
Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Memphis, they shall appoint 
a suitable person for each ward of the city, and one for the 



402 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

city at large, as visitors of the city schools, who shall be 
appointed for one year; but no one shall be a member of the 
Board of Visitors unless he will declare his intention to dis- 
charge the duties of his position with fidelity." 

Dr. Merrill was appointed Visitor for the city at large, and 
the other members of the Visiting Board, representing each 
ward, were Dr. L. Shanks, Dr. J. W. Maddox and Messrs. I. B. 
Kirtland, Leroy Pope, H. L. Guion and Robertson Topp. 

The expenses of the schools for the year ending in June, 

J 1856, were $1,500 for the Superintendent's salary, $10,563.34 

for teachers' salaries, $2,745.99 for rents and repairs, $400.15 

for furniture and $1,030.13 for incidentals. This total sum of 

I $16,239.61 represented an expenditure of $10.29 for each pupil 

admitted to the schools during the year. 

In 1857 Mr. Leroy Pope became superintendent and the 
Board of Visitors consisted of Messrs. Thomas D. Eldridge, the 
visitor at large, S. W. Jefferson, Fred Baxter, George R. Grant, 
B. F. Dill, W. J. Tuck and H. F. Farnsworth. 

There were 1,313 pupils admitted to the schools during 
the term of 1856-57, and nineteen teachers were employed. 
Of these Mr. P. H. Davie was teacher of the "Senior male 
school," at a salary of $1,000, and Mrs. Annie C. Bradford was 
teacher of the "Senior female school," at a salary of $800. 
The male junior teachers received $600 and the women junior 
teachers, $500. The primary teachers, who were all women, 
received $500 each. All the salaries from Superintendent down 
had been increased that year. 

The revenue collected for school purposes for the year 
ending July, 1857, was $24,000. 

In 1860 the school-tax was increased to $15 for each white 
child between the ages of six and eighteen years of age. The 
same Act that made this provision authorized the Board of 
School Visitors to spend $75,000 for building school edifices, 
the Board of Mayor and Aldermen being given the authority 
to issue bonds for the amount to be so expended. 

Th(- Board of Visitors that year were John A. Nooe, presi- 
dent : J. F. Johnston, secretary ; Thos. H. Allen, treasurer ; 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 403 

P. T. 'Mahony, Charles Scott, George R. Grant, F. S. Richards 
and N. B. Holt. 

In 1861 the War came with all of its terrors and disadvan- 
tages and general interest in schools naturally slackened with 
the masses, immersed as they became in national affairs, but it 
is good to be able to relate that during the whole four years, 
with no money in the treasury and business and other interests 
in upheaval, the Memphis schools remained open and the ^ 
attendance was fairly good all the four terms during the con- 
flict. Buildings and school supplies were neglected, but some 
of the citizens furnished money, the Board of Visitors con- 
tinued their duties and each year had a faithful superinten- 
dent. The teachers were paid and the terms lasted ten months. 

The term ending in 1861, with Mr. Leroy Pope, Superin- 
tendent, showed an enrollment of 2,073 pupils and an average 
daily attendance of 1,019, while the expenses of the year 
amounted to $29,977. 

The next year Dr. Merrill was again superintendent, and 
Mr. G. R. Grant was president of the Board of Visitors. This 
year there were 1,791 pupils enrolled with an average daily 
attendance of 755, and the cost of running the schools was 
$20,030. Dr. Merrill said that the pupils decreased consider- 
ably that year "from the disturbing influences of the war; 
and especially by the near approach and final capture of the 
city by the Federal troops." Another reason for decrease in 
attendance that year was the withdrawal of Catholics of their 
children, that they might attend the newly opened Catholic 
parochial schools, where they were to be taught the church 
catechism in addition to the regular school studies. The senior 
boys' school became so depleted that it was discontinued, but 
the senior girls' department, because the girls could not be 
soldiers, was well attended and very successful. 

The year of 1862-63 had an enrollment of 1,495 and an 
average attendance of 607. Mr. Richard Hines was superin- 
tendent this year and Mr. James Elder president of the Board. 
The expenses amounted to $20,038.09. 

The next year Mr. Elder became superintendent and was 



404 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

succeeded as president by Mr. S, T. Morgan, and they remained 
in office two years. $23,707 were spent on the schools that 
term and 2,216 pupils were enrolled, while an average attend- 
ance of 902 was shown. 

The year of 1864-65 had an enrollment of 2,418 and an 
average attendance of 1,036. 

When the war closed a census was taken, which showed 
a school population of 3,865, and the enrollment in the public 
schools at that time was 2,523, with an average attendance of 
1,209. 

The amounts contributed towards the schools during the 
war, while very generous from some of the contributors, were 
inadequate and the treasury was empty, so in 1863, at a meet- 
ing of the Board, a committee was appointed to devise ways 
and means for carrying on the schools. The committee framed 
this resolution, which the City Council passed: ''That the 
certificate of indebtedness issued monthly by the Board of 
School Visitors to their officers and teachers in settlement of 
their claims for services rendered as officers and teachers, be 
and the same are hereby declared receivable by the tax collector 
and city treasurer in satisfaction of any and all claims due the 
city." 

Public education was thereby kept going, but a heavy 
debt was incurred which embarrassed the schools for years 
after the war and retarded their progress for a time. In 1864 
provision was made for maintaining public schools for colored 
children, the only education they had had prior to that time 
having been private instruction. The colored schools were 
afterward incorporated with the system of white schools and 
in 1865 there were nearly 2,000 pupils in this department of the 
public schools.* 

At the close of the war J. J. Peres became President of the 
School Board and W. Z. Mitchell became Superintendent. 

An Act of the Legislature in 1866 increased the Board of 
School Visitors two members for each ward, and increased 

*Vedder. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 405 

their time to two years instead of one. Public schools were 
placed under the exclusive control of the Board of Visitors, 
who were vested with power to purchase and hold property 
for city school purposes, and do whatever was needful for the 
good and advancement of the schools. They could purchase 
buildings and lots to the amount of $75,000. This Board was 
to submit a budget each year to the Board of Mayor and 
Aldermen. A school tax of $15 was to be levied by the Board j 
for each child of school age in the city. 

For the year ending in the summer of 1868 we find the 
public schools progressing under Mr. H. D. Connell as Presi- 
dent of the Board and Mr. W. Z. Mitchell, Superintendent. 
The Board had been forced to limit expenditures to salaries, 
rents and necessary repairs, and money was not at all times 
available for these purposes. The President said: "Every 
other interest has been better protected" than the schools, "the 
paltry sum of $11,285.05 for school purposes" having been 
all collected for the year. He also said: "Memphis has con- 
tinued to have her schools taught in temporary and uncomfort- 
able buildings. Our teachers have faithfully worked on, while 
the Board is largely in debt to them for their salaries." 

This year when the Board asked for an additional $10,000 
to meet extra expense brought on by the extension of the city ^ 
limits, Mayor Leftwich vetoed the request, giving as his excuse, 
enforced economy in every department of the city government. 

Mr. Mitchell in his report this same year said that the <^ 
schools had made marked improvement in organization and 
classification of the pupils, despite "difficulties heretofore 
unknown in your school history." Organization among the 
teachers was good, too, and the requirements for thoughtful 
teaching became more strict. A teachers' institute met the 
first Saturday of each month, when it was required that they 
should be "at least three hours in discussing methods of dis- 
cipline, methods of instruction, and conferring together respect- 
ing the general interests of the schools." So imperative was 
it made that teachers attend these meetings that absence from 
any of them forfeited one twenty-fourth of a month's salary. 



406 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

A teachers' library was begun and enducational periodicals 
were subscribed for. 

The pupils enrolled in the public schools this year num- 
bered 2,884, out of a scholastic population of 5,555, and the 
average daily attendance was 1,583. There were forty-two 
teachers, and ]\Ir. Mitchell gave the "average salary of male 
teachers, $1,361.11," and the "average salary of female teachers, 
$971.43." 

In 1869 a new charter was granted to the city schools, 
placing them under the "exclusive management and control 
of a board of education consisting of two members from each 
ward." 

So the School Board began the new decade with what had 
been long desired, the dignity of controlling its own affairs, 
which has ever since proved an advantage to the schools and 
to public education in Memphis. But the Board depended 
still upon the General Council of the city for all funds, as the 
School Board had no taxing power. A small amount of the 
county tax levy came to the city schools. 

The reports of the President and Superintendent follow- 
ing this action made July, 1870, show the beginning of real 
growth in the schools. Superintendent J. T. Leath said that 
the scholastic year of 1869-70 "may be considered in all 
respects as the most prosperous which our city schools have 
experienced since their organization in 1852. For the first time 
since I have been acquainted with the financial condition of 
the School Board, its treasury has been in a state sufficiently 
sound and healthy to pay off and discharge in full the pay-roll 
of its teachers and employees of the year." 

President Thomas R. Smith also congratulated the Board 
"on the healthy state of its finances." During this year fifty- 
one schools had been maintained at an expense of $54,027, and 
the Board had reduced the debt of $58,702.64 to $30,569.25, 
and they had on hand cash to the amount of $311.89 ; State 
warrants to the amount of $9,761.32; taxes due by the city 
$56,635.23 ; city bonds belonging to the building fund of 
$20,000 ; city ledger balance $900. The Board also now owned 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 407 

buildings, lots and school furniture to the amount of $125,- 
825.50. 

The buildings were still inadequate for school purposes 
and despite acts that had authorized funds for school buildings, ,/ 
the city still did not own a good educational building nor a 
site for one. Under the conditions of the new charter the 
School Board commanded more money, and in 1870 a lot was 
purchased at the corner of Market and Third Streets and the 
following year the first real school-house owned by the School 
Board was erected, costing, with the lot, $80,000. The next 
year another good brick building w^ent up in the southern part 
of the city, named for the great philanthropist and school 
promoter, George Peabody. This building cost $30,000 and 
was a pride to the city, as the one of the previous year had 
been. 

In 1872 Dr. R. B. Maury was President of the Board and 
Mr. H, C. Slaughter Superintendent of the Schools. The 
reports tendered by these two leaders showed good condition 
of the schools. Sixty were maintained that year at a cost of '^ 
$72,195. Dr. Maury's predominating idea was to make the 
schools "everything they ought to be," to use his own words. 

Mr. Slaughter expressed satisfaction for the schools in 
general, but urged better teachers for the colored schools and ^ 
means of making pupils in those schools attend more regularly. 

The yellow fever in 1873 was a great set-back to the 
schools as it was to all Memphis enterprises. Several members 
of the Board, several teachers and many of the pupils died 
during the epidemic. The schools were forced to close, but 
reopened in November and continued through the term, meeting 
all current expenses, but were otherwise embarrassed as school 
taxes were poorly collected. Even salaries and other necessary 
expenses could not have been met but for a contribution from 
the "Peabody School Fund," which was a great help in time 
of trouble. 

Mr. Charles Kortrecht, who was now President of the 
School Board, insisted that Memphis ought to have new school 
buildings, as all used for that purpose, except the two recently 



408 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

built, were a disgrace to the city, another exception being one 
for colored children on Clay Street, a building similar to the 
Peabody School, built in 1874. 

Most of the buildings were still rented from private owners 
and wholly unfitted in their construction for schools. In men- 
tioning the male and female high schools, where young men 
and women were prepared for society and business, Mr. Kort- 
reeht said: "It is a shame and a disgrace to our city, to this 
Board, and to the municipal authorities of Memphis, that these, 
the first and most important schools in our city, and in our 
system, should be kept in old, dilapidated, abandoned dwell- 
ings, and their outhouses, with leaky roofs and ceilings, with 
openings around the doors and windows, through which sun- 
shine and storm alike penetrate, both in summer and winter." 

Mr. Kortrecht urged that the Board assert their right to 
use the building fund of $500,000 provided by the Legislature 
for the Memphis city schools, **to be furnished in sums of not 
exceedings $50,000 per annum, for the term of ten years, from 
and after January 14, 1869." 

Still pursuing this subject he said: "In part compliance 
with this requirement the city authorities furnished this Board, 
for the four years, 1869, 1870, 1871 and 1872, toward this build- 
ing fund fifty thousand dollars each year — not in money as 
the charter requires, but in time bonds of the city, worth at 
their highest market price, sixty cents on the dollar. For the 
year 1873, the city government furnished the schools on account 
of building fund, not fifty thousand, but about the sum of 
fifteen thousand dollars." 

The Superintendent, Mr. A. Pickett, corroborated all that 
Mr. Kortrecht said in regard to new school buildings, adding 
from his aesthetic point of view the beautiful to utility, in order 
to attract children and to make them happy as well as comfort- 
able. "The place where children study," he said, "should be 
attractive, convenient and healthful. * * * Children especially 
live on hope ; they always want something attractive before them, 
and they will labor and endure much to reach the desired object. 
A building is the first point of interest. If the other things that 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 409 

combine to render a school a success are all of the highest 
order, without the building, much, both of labor and other 
expense, will be unavailing. Can the city afford to build? is 
scarcely a question, — can the city afford to do without? is a 
question that needs most careful consideration." 

Mr. Pickett considered culture a higher factor in keeping 
up or increasing the values of civilized communities than mere 
physical necessities. 

During this year there were 4,258 white children enrolled 
in the schools and 1,565 colored, out of a scholastic population 
of 6,479 white and 3,902 colored children. The daily attend- 
ance of these averaged 2,092 and 658, respectively. 

Drawbacks notwithstanding, the schools went on with 
growing success, several sites were purchased and modern 
school-buildings were planned, but in the latter part of this 
decade of the seventies all school enterprise was stopped by the 
two terrible scourges that visited the city. 

During the epidemic of 1878 the Market Street, Court 
Street and Lauderdale Street schools were used by the Howard 
Association for hospitals. 

1880 found the school wards of the Taxing District very 
short of funds and suffering with all of Memphis from the 
terrible devastation recently made. This year there were ten 
public school buildings, seven of which had been built for 
schools and the other three were old residences. Six of these 
buildings were brick and four frame. Nearly all were defective 
in ventilation and other essentials, having been built or remod- 
eled simply for the purpose of housing the children during 
school hours. The converted residences were wholly unfit for 
schools, with poor sanitation, poorly arranged rooms, lighting, 
etc., and they were all crowded except Market Street. There 
were 4,105 pupils enrolled and sixty-seven teachers employed, 
white and colored. 

There were thirteen private schools in Memphis in 1880. 
Miss Higbee, who had been a public-school teacher and prin- 
cipal, had started an efficient school for girls ; Miss Murphy had 
a popular school and the Catholics conducted LaSalette and 



410 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

St. Agnes academies, Christiaa Brothers' College and five 
parochial schools; Miss Conway, another public-school prin- 
cipal and intellectual woman, had a school for girls; the 
Germans had a Lutheran school ; and Le Moyne was an institute 
that had been opened for colored students. These schools had 
an enrollment of 842 white and 200 colored pupils, giving a total 
enrollment of pupils in all the Taxing District schools of 5,147. 

In 1883 the Legislature passed an Act repealing the Act of 
1869, or amending it so much as to amount to a repeal, and 
created a new Board of Education, to consist of five commis- 
sioners, having the powers possessed by the old Board, but with 
modifications. The school officers were to receive salaries — the 
President $500 per annum, and each of the other members of 
the Board $200 per annum. 

The first Board of these School Commissioners, who were 
G. V. Rambaut, R. D. Jordan, P. M. Winters, Henry J. Lynn 
and Alfred Froman, were appointed by the Governor and held 
office until their successors were elected in 1884 by the people, 
three of them for two year terms and two for four year terms. 

1885 found all the available schools filled to overflowing and 
President R. D. Jordan pleading for new buildings, saying that 
"The overcrowded condition of the rooms is a positive hindrance 
to successful instruction and enforcement of the rules laid down 
for the governance of the schools, to say nothing of its deleterious 
influences on the health of the children and teachers." 

The enrollment for that year was 5,143, of which 3,352 
belonged to the primary department, 1,635 to the intermediate 
and 156 to the senior department. The total income for the 
year was $48,699.37, which was .$4,038.58 less than for the 
previous year. Of the amount received $1,012.32 had come from 
"pay pupils." 

In 1886-87 a school site was purchased in Chelsea and a sub- 
stantial school building was erected thereon at a cost of $10,416. 
Besides this two other sites had been bought and the United 
States Government had given a lot on the corner of Jefferson and 
Third Streets. 

Captain Collier considered this year as a whole a successful 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 411 

one with the students and he mentioned the success of some of 
the pupils in competitive examination, in which merit alone could 
win, he said : ' ' Two of these young men, high-school graduates, 
received appointments to West Point and Annapolis. Another 
won first honor in her class at the Normal College in Nashville, 
and a colored girl of Clay Street school had led her class in the 
Roger Williams College." 

In the school year of 1890-91 the five commissioners manag- 
ing the school affairs had been elected by the citizens, and Captain 
Collier, elected by the Board in 1885, still filled the position 
of Superintendent. The President of the Board was Mr. R. D. 
Jordan. 

The city now gave the annual $50,000 appropriation for 
the schools and other funds came from State and County 
appropriations, bringing the school fund to $175,000 a year. 

In 1889 an Act of the Legislature invested the Board 
with authority to issue coupon bonds to the amount of $100,000 
for providing ways and means for school buildings and 
grounds.* 

In order to erect schools in all parts of the city at once 
instead of following the slow process of erecting one a year, the 
Board, after issuing the bonds allowed by the Act, placed them 
upon the market publicly for thirty days, after which time 
they were sold to the Manhattan and First National Banks 
at a premium of four per cent, netting $104,000. 

This sale was "executed by the President and Secretary 
of the Board, with the seal attached, under a resolution of the 
Board, conveying all property owTied by the Board of Educa- 
tion, valued at $350,000, by the Valuation Committee last 
appointed by the Board, to Thomas B. Turley, W. F. Taylor 
and J. W. Cochran, trustees." 

In consequence of all these transactions handsome and 
well-adapted schools were springing up all over the city, much 
to the satisfaction and profit of all concerned. Equipments 
were constantly being improved and the Memphis schools were 

*Acts of 1889, Chapter 185. 



412 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

becoming a pride to the city and offering better and better 
advantages to those to be educated. 

The amount spent on buildings that year was $118,616.69, 
and all the expenses of the schools amounted to $185,354.84.* 

There were now two high schools with excellent teachers 
of higher and special branches, such as elocution, music, 
drawing, bookkeeping, and the Superintendent recommended 
introducing manual training as a practical part of education, 
asking that stenography and type-writing might be started right 
away. 

1891 showed a register of 6,220 pupils, the average attend- 
ance being 4,263, of which 2,798 were white and 1,465 colored. 
There were 107 teachers employed with salaries ranging from 
$30 to $117 per month, and ten aid teachers at $15 per month. 

In 1892 the Hope Night School was taken in as part of the 
Public School System. This school has an interesting history 
and has been a valuable factor in training Memphis boys. It 
was conceived in the fall of 1878 by Mr. J. C. Johnson, after 
the terrible scourge had left so many IVIemphis children father- 
less. Many boys so left were forced to go to work and could 
not take advantage of the day schools. Mr. Johnson pondered 
on means for providing for a continuation of the education of 
such boys, which ended in his decision to open a night school. 
That took money, and knowing the impoverished condition of 
the city he would not solicit aid from others. He determined 
to make the venture alone and fitted up a room for the purpose 
in a store he owned on Main Street. After this outlay he 
obtained a teacher, whose salary he paid, bought books and 
other school-room necessities and invited the boys to come. 
They came and the school grew so rapidly that larger quarters 
were needed before many sessions had passed. The school was 
moved to the "Bethel," where four teachers were employed 
with Miss Smith as principal. The record of this school was 
excellent year after year and some of the most influential 
citizens of Memphis today were once students in the Hope 
Night School. 

•Report of Secy., Capt. A. B. Hill. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 413 

When Mr. Johnson's daughter, Miss Lillian Wyckoff John- 
son, returned to Memphis from school in 1887, she became a 
teacher in the Hope Night School. "When her father moved 
away from the city she was not only principal of the school 
but, with her father's enthusiasm for the success of the institu- 
tion that had become an expensive one to run, this brave young 
teacher collected from Memphis merchants $1,500 every year 
for its maintenance till it became one of the public schools in 
1892. 

Captain Collier, after having served as Superintendent 
twelve years, was succeeded in 1893 by General George W. 
Gordon. 

The expense account of the schools for 1893 was $96,878,58, 
making a cost per pupil of $13.96. The scholastic population 
was 17,831, while the public school enrollment was 7,087, with 
an average attendance of 4,252. 

Major G. V. Rambaut was President of the Board, the 
other member being Captain A. B. Hill, the Secretary. 

The following year Mr. F. B. Hunter was elected Presi- 
dent of the Board and in 1895 Mr. J. E. Beasley had that 
distinction, General Gordon still serving as Superintendent. 

The total expenditure for 1895 was $95,156.79, teachers' 
salaries taking $63,062.65 of that amount. The enrollment 
was 7,095 with an average attendance of 4,483. 

Mr. Beasley was succeeded in 1897 by Mr. A. W. Higgins 
but returned to the office the following year. This year the 
Legislative Council allotted to the School Board $90,000, to 
meet the demands made on the schools by the territory recently 
annexed to the city and in view of raising the salaries of a 
number of the teachers. With the mentioned annexation ten 
white and seven colored schools were added to the care of the 
City School Board. 

In 1899 Mr. Israel H. Peres was elected President of the 
Board and served in that capacity until 1900, when Mr. 
Beasley was again elected. 

The century closed promisingly for the schools, with indi- 
cations nowhere visible of the terrible struggles that had been 



414 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

endured in previous years. Secretary Hill's report of 1900 
showed an expense account of $143,551.01, the amount for 
teachers' salaries now amounting to $100,150.65. There were 
twenty-eight schools — the extension of the city limits in 1899 
having given sixteen additional ones — and two hundred and 
eight teachers. 

The scholastic population then was 27,325, of this number 
11,071 being enrolled in the public schools. The enrollment 
of the white high-school was 441 and that of the colored — 
Kortrecht — was 86. There were 37 graduates in May from 
the former and 13 from the latter. 

In 1901-2 Mr. J. M. Steen was President of the Board 
and his reports showed progress in both white and colored 
schools, as did those of General Gordon for the same time. In 
1902 there were thirty-three graduates, eight of whom were 
boys. 

The work of the schools was so great that the Board 
elected Prof. Wharton S. Jones Assistant Superintendent. 

In 1903 Mr. C. J. O'Neil became President of the Board. 
Territory that was annexed in 1901, gave more children to be 
provided for, but the same Legislature that annexed the city 
territory authorized the issuance of additional bonds, and in 
1902 the Board issued under this Act $70,000 of four per 
cent bonds which were sold at a premium. 

Mr. O'Neil urged the introduction of manual training 
into the schools and reported the night school as doing satis- 
factory work and having a good attendance. He recommended 
a more central location for its accommodation, that more young 
people might be benefitted thereby. This year the school term 
was increased to nine months. Another year was also added 
to the school course and each year has added to the care with 
which text-books are selected and assigned to different classes, 
with the prescribed courses of study. 

In the year 1903-4 Mr. C. W. Edmonds was President of 
the Board and he stated that Memphis schools had been brought 
to a standard that entitled them to be ''the equal, if not 
superior, of any city of like size in our whole country." 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 415 

It was planned this year to abolish a number of small 
schools and concentrate their forces into larger and better 
equipped schools. 

In his report for the year 1903-4, Professor Jones showed 
much work accomplished. Besides conducting examinations, 
with the assistance of Professor N. M. Williams, he prepared 
questions for the examinations of many of the grades and 
inspected grade work in all the schools. That year he visited 
596 grades and the following year he inspected the work of 
every grade in the schools. This familiarity with the work 
done in the school-rooms proved beneficial to pupils, teachers 
and school efficiency. 

President 0. I. Kruger's report for 1905 showed the income 
for the building fund for three and a half years to have been 
$292,721.20, and expenditures to have been $291,691.57. There 
were some splendid buildings and much valuable school prop- 
erty to show for this expenditure. During the three years 
ending with the 1904-5 term, ninety-nine school rooms had 
been added, making two hundred and seventy in all, but when 
some of the small schools were consolidated into larger ones, 
seventeen rooms were abandoned, leaving two hundred and 
fifty-three rooms in use; but these really gave better accommo- 
dations to the children than the two hundred and seventy 
rooms had done, poor and scattered as some of them had been. 
There were 207 white and 85 colored teachers that year, with 
a payroll of $147,773.05. The payroll of other school employes 
then amounted to $25,803.15, and other school expenses 
amounted to $56,999.84. 

President Kruger considered the night school one of the 
most important departments in the free school system and 
recommended central and first-class quarters for its accommo- 
dation. 

In 1905 the Legislature authorized the issuance of $125,000 
Bonds for "providing ways and means of construction of school 
buildings and grounds and for improvements and repairs to 
school property." 

School bonds were to be issued in such denominations as 



416 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the Board of Education should consider "best fitted to accom- 
plish the object in view," and to bear a rate of interest not to 
exceed four and one-half per cent. 

This Act further provided that "Said bonds shall be in 
such form as may be fixed and prescribed by said Board of 
Education, and shall be signed with the signatures of the 
President and Secretary of such Boards, the interest coupons 
attached to such bonds bearing the engraved or lithographed 
signatures of the President and Secretary of such Boards; 
provided, however, that said bonds shall not be sold for less 
than par, and no commission shall be paid for the sale of said 
bonds." 

In this Act the Legislative Council are "given the irre- 
pealable power and authority, and are directed in addition to 
the taxes levied by them for the building of said schools, or the 
payment of bonds heretofore issued by said School Boards and 
now outstanding, to annually levy a tax sufficient to pay the 
interest on such bonds authorized to be issued by this act as 
the same mature, and to create a sinking fund sufficient to 
pay the principal of said bonds at their maturity." 

When the term ended in June, 1906, Dr. G. B. Malone 
was President of the School Board. Dr. Malone, like many of 
his predecessors, realized the importance of the public schools 
as educative and municipal institutions. He said on this point : 
"No other branch in our municipal government will compare 
in usefulness and permanent benefit to the general welfare of 
our people with that of our public school system. It should 
therefore be both the duty and pleasure of every citizen to 
inform himself as to the needs of the schools and co-operate 
with the Board in making them the best in the land" 

Dr. Malone recommended manual training in the schools, 
saying : " It is the duty we owe to our children to prepare them 
for the higher positions in life. Why should the industrial insti- 
tutions of our city have to send to other States for trained work- 
men when we have the material at home, and which only needs 
opportunity for proper training?" 

The Secretary of the Board, Captain A. B. Hill, was 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 417 

elected to that office September 12, 1881, and has noted the 
constant upward growth of the schools since those early Taxing 
District days, as no one else could. 

In 1907, Dr. E. A. Neely was appointed President of the 
Board. 

Manual Training had been made part of the public school 
curriculum and proved in its first year of experiment, a success, 
with an able supervisor in the work, Mr. E. E. Utterback. 

The Legislature of 1907 passed an Act amending the Act ^ 
of 1903, in regard to efficient management of the public schools, *^ 
and the Commissioners governing them, thus: 

"That said Commissioners shall be elected by the qualified 
voters of such taxing district, and that election shall take place 
at the same time that members of the General Assembly are 
elected, viz., on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in 
November, 1908, and every four years thereafter, and the term 
of office of said Commissioners shall be for a term of four 
years, and they shall hold their office for such term, and until 
their successors are elected and qualified four years there- 
after; provided, that the present two Commissioners, whose 
term of office expires January 1, 1908, shall hold their office 
until the election and qualification of their successors, as above 
provided. ' ' 

General Gordon, who had been Superintendent of the 
schools for nearly fifteen years, was succeeded as Superin- 
tendent in 1907 by Mr. I. C. McNeill, an educator of wide 
experience. 

The schools had now grown to such proportions that the 
Board needed every dollar they could command to carry on 
expenses and erect new buildings demanded by the stress of 
necessity. For two years the school term had ended with a 
deficit of considerable figure that had been incurred in building, 
and other improvements had been needed, and needs continued 
to multiply as each year enrolled more children and modem 
education made heavier demands, The City Council refused to 
grant all that the law allowed to the schools and the Board won 
a suit for $40,000 due them. 

Mr. Ogilvie, then President of the Board, plead for the 



418 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

highest standard for the Memphis public schools in all branches 
of moral, intellectual and physical advancement, believing, as 
many of liis predecessors had done, that improvement of the 
schools meant improvement of the city in every way. 

A great need for normal training was felt at this time and 
the subject of a normal scliool was agitated. Mr. McNeill said, 
"Memphis needs a normal school. Untrained additions to the 
teaching corps are expensive at any salary. The loss of pupils' 
time and the waste of their energies when not guided by 
professionally trained teachers cost more than a normal school 
would." He also said, "The teacher is the vital element in 
the school. The best trained person, with all the natural and 
acquired graces of character, is none too good for the schools 
of this city. * * * Experience has shown that expert service is 
the most economical as well as the most profitable to employers. ' ' 

Professor Jones conducted a normal class that year which 
met Tuesday and Thursday afternoons of each week. This 
class was formed for the aid teachers, but a number of regular 
teachers attended the lessons. One of the advantages these 
classes enjoyed was a course of lectures on music by Miss Marie 
Leary, the school supervisor of music, and a course of lectures 
on primary work by Miss Mabelle Solly. 

Still another normal advantage given the teachers that 
year was a psychology class, from which the many teachers 
who attended derived much benefit. 

The Conference for Education in the South met in Mem- 
phis in 1908 and Mr. McNeill called it "an instrument of 
mighty power for the educational uplift of this country." 

The teachers gained benefit from their institutes, from the 
Teachers' League, the Story Tellers' League and a school 
magazine published in Memphis, "The Cornerstone." 

The Superintendent considered the Teachers' League of 
great value. 

Miss Cora Ashe, principal of St. Paul Street School, was 
president of the League and many teachers took active part in 
furthering and broadening its helpful scope. Among its 
benefits to the teachers were excellent educational lectures, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 419 

some of which were "William Tell," by Rabbi Samfieldj 
"Intellectual Reactions," by Superintendent McNeill; "Edu- 
cation at Public Expense," by M. W. Connolly; "The Source 
of a Teacher's Effectiveness and Power," by Rev. Hugh 
Spencer Williams; "The Appreciation of Parliamentary Law," 
by Mr. Israel Peres; and a number of physical lectures by 
eminent physicians. 

The Story Teller's League was of inestimable value, as 
there is no surer way of reaching the sympathy of children or 
of appealing to the best in them than through stories. 

Industrial and physical training had by this time become 
a very important part of the schools and had brought forth 
excellent results in developing the children and enlarging the 
attendance of the high schools, white and colored. 

The industrial training linked the physical and mental by 
giving "doing with thinking," that paramount rule of the great 
Kindergartner, Froebel. The three-fold plan of Froebel was to 
train children equally morally, mentally and physically, thus 
making a wholly rounded character and this principle had 
grown to be part of the public school aim of Memphis. 

The growth of the high school had been so rapid that the 
elegant stone building provided for that purpose had become 
much too small, so another building, the Fowlkes Grammar 
School, was taken for an annex, that the high school children 
might be accommodated, and the grammar children were 
assigned to other schools. 

The high school course had been added to, so that graduates 
were enabled to enter many of the leading universities and col- 
leges from this school, without further preparation or examina- 
tion, which caused more students to plan to complete their school 
course in the Memphis High School. In a letter from Chancellor 
J. H. Earkland of Vanderbilt University, received by Mr. 
McNeill, were these words : 

"You certainly placed the Memphis High School on a 
sound basis, and the course of study * * * would be creditable to 
any city. It seems to me that it completely covers all require- 



420 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

ments to college, and I trust some of your graduates may have 
their attention directed to this institution." 

Mr. McNeill also had a letter from Professor Miller of 
Tulane University, in which he said : 

"I have examined your course with great care, and am 
glad to tell you that everything seems to be up to the standard 
of the best schools, not only in the South but in the country. 
We are very glad to place your school on our accredited list. 
I trust that some member of our faculty may be able soon to 
visit your school and to come into personal touch with your 
work ; and I hope, too, that we shall have the pleasure of welcom- 
ing here some of your graduates. The President instructs me to 
inform you that a scholarship in the Academic Colleges is open 
at any time to the boy who will make the best record at your 
school in his senior year, or, if your best boy can not come, the 
same offer is open to the second best. ' ' 

An Act of the Legislature in 1907 authorized Memphis to 
issue coupon bonds to the amount of $500,000, "for the pur- 
pose of providing ways and means for the construction of school 
buildings and grounds and for improvements and repairs to 
school property." 

These bonds were to be in such form as the Board of Educa- 
tion should prescribe, not to be sold for less than par and no 
commission to be paid for their sale. 

It was further enacted in Section 3 of this Act, that the 
Board of Education should be authorized and empowered to 
secure the payment of each and all of said bonds and coupons 
authorized by this act to be issued, ratably and without prefer- 
ence, by mortgage or trust deed upon any and all real estate 
and buildings thereon. The property of said Boards of Educa- 
tion and said mortgages or trust deeds may contain such terms 
or provisions as such Boards of Education or any of them so 
issuing said bonds may deem most expedient and best, not 
inconsistent with this act." 

Section 5 provided that the Legislative Council be "given 
the irrepealable power and authority and are directed in addi- 
tion to the taxes levied by them for the building of said schools, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 421 

or the payment of bonds heretofore issued by said School 
Boards, and now outstanding, to annually levy a tax sufficient 
to pay the interest on such bonds authorized to be issued by 
this act as the same mature, and to create a sinking fund suffi- 
cient to pay the principal of said bonds at their maturity." 

This Act was passed April 23, 1909 and approved by Gov- 
ernor Patterson three days later. 

Mr. McNeill was again Superintendent in 1909 and Mr. 
J. M. Steen president of the Board. They were succeeded in 
1910 by Dr. J. P. Bailey, as superintendent and Dr. Malone as 
president. Dr. Bailey resigned his position August 31, 1910, 
and Assistant-Superintendent Jones was appointed to fill his 
place, "pending the election of a Superintendent." June 1, 
1911, Mr. L. E. Wolfe was elected Superintendent, but Profes- 
sor Jones made the report for the year, as he had done the work 
of that session. 

Professor Jones' report for this year was one of the fullest 
ever given and showed much advancement in every direction. 

Four elegant new buildings were completed that year, the 
Snowden School, corner of Speedway and McLean Avenue; 
the Peabody School, corner of Young and Tanglewood; Lenox 
School, in the part of the city known as Lenox; and the A. B. 
Hill School, corner Latham and Olive Streets, the largest of the 
four. 

Extensive additions were made to numerous other schools 
and many of the school grounds were beautified. Dr. Malone 
said: "The cultural value of such beautiful buildings and 
attractive grounds is of inestimable value in the training and 
development of the young people of the city." 

The new Central High School was also nearly completed. 
This splendid and most costly of the buildings yet erected by 
the Board was to fill an urgent need and was looked forward to 
with much pride by the Board, the teachers, pupils and inter- 
ested citizens generally. It has thirteen acres of ground and is 
said to be the most complete high school building in the country. 

A bond of unity of the Memphis High School graduates 
not before mentioned is the Memphis High School Alumni Asso- 



422 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

elation organized in 1897, with Miss Mary V. Little, President. 
This organization has brought students of many of the school 
terms in touch with one another. 

The officers elected in 1910 were Mary V. Little, president; 
Alice O'Donnell, tirst vice-president; Oscar Haaga, second vice- 
president; Elizabeth Wills, secretary; Emanuel Klein, treas- 
urer; Martha Michel Martin, press representative; and Effie 
Wright, historian. 

In 1911 Mary V. Little, president; Alice O'Donnell, vice- 
president ; Tom Mitchell, second vice-president ; Clarence Moore, 
secretary; Cecil Elliot, treasurer; Clara McCorkle, historian; 
Ernest Johnson, press representative. 

During the year of 1910-11, 16,636 pupils were enrolled in 
the public schools, an increase of 920 over the preceding year. 
The average daily attendance was 11,842. 

The year closed with the schools in good financial condition, 
having on hand $4,680.76. Professor Jones attributed the good 
financial management to the Board of Education which, he said, 
"has been ever alert and vigilant in caring for the welfare of 
the schools. With this Board every member has lived up to the 
principle that the holding of a public office is a public trust." 
Of course a great help Avas the Legislative Act of 1909, 
allowing the Board more money, and the winning of the lawsuit, 
which gave an extra tax to the schools. 

Dr. R. B, Maury, Tennessee President of the Audubon 
Society for the protection of birds, aroused interest in the 
schools that year, so that auxiliary societies were formed among 
the pupils with an enrollment of 1,600, which was then the 
largest membership of any State in the Union. 

Another work that interested many of the children was the 
introduction of school gardens, under the direction of Mr. O. M. 
Watson. 

There are many difficulties to meet in such work in a city, 
but Mr. Watson was very much in earnest. He visited each 
school grade from the fourth grade up, explained his plan to 
the children and called for volunteer gardners. 126 children 
volunteered but later 23 dropped out, so the work commenced 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 423 

with 103 children and 85 gardens. Some of these gardens failed 
for lack of proper attention or other reason, and the number was 
reduced to 64, while the membership was 85. In June, 23 of 
the gardens made exhibits of their products and Mr. Watson 
considered this good work for a first year. He said : " In almost 
every home where the gardens have been made in the back yards 
the front yards have been beautified." 

Industrial work was greatly strengthened in this year and 
Mr. Utterback expressed the opinion that it had been very suc- 
cessful. 

Hand and machine sewing were added in the white high 
school and much good work was produced. In the colored 
school this work had been a feature for over two years and the 
girls had done creditable work there. 

Mr. Utterback 's idea in the industrial work was to keep 
it "abreast with the progressive industrial work outside the 
school. ' ' 

The new high school was provided with every convenience 
for elaborate industrial work, as for all other branches of the 
work of the higher grades. 

Women were admitted to the Hope Night School in the 
session of 1910-11, which caused its enrollment to increase very 
much. Bookkeeping, stenography, typewriting and manual 
training were added to the course and they attracted many 
students. The literary course was also enlarged and free text- 
books were furnished. The night school has become a great 
force and many young men and women who must work during 
the day and who started to work early in life, derive valuable 
educational advantages here that they could not otherwise have. 

Summer schools were held in 1911 when many children 
made up their terms, which they would have lost, as some 
had failed in examinations or had been otherwise retarded in 
their school work. There were 2,294 pupils enrolled in this 
summer school. 

As so much extra work is required of teachers and many of 
them have no income except their salaries; and as they can do 
no extra work in vacation and still keep up with the required 



424 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

school work demanded by the Board during that time to fit 
themselves as better teachers and keep up with modern methods, 
the Board voted to allow them salaries every month in the year. 
So these men and women were given a chance to do good summer 
work without the strain that lack of money for necessary living, 
and perhaps supporting others, brings. Such strain hampers any 
worker and prevents his giving his best effort to his work. 

The reports for the year 1911-12 are not yet prepared for 
the public but enough has been written of the past few years to 
show the marvellous growth and extent of the Memphis city 
schools. The school year just closed is not behind any other 
and with its splendid corps of officers and teachers and the 
modern buildings and equipments equal to that of any city its 
size and ahead of many larger cities, Memphis is not behind in 
the educational advantages she offers. Of all her city advan- 
tages and improvements none stands out more than her Educa- 
tional Department. 

The school property now amounts to a valuation of $1,800,- 
000, and some of the buildings are among the handsomest and 
best equipped in the country. The standard of the teachers is 
high, some of these being graduates of the first colleges of the 
land, while others have taken special courses to fit them for 
special work and all are required to keep abreast of the times. 
The curriculum, as has been stated before, is high and Mem- 
phis High School graduates can enter some of the best colleges 
without further preparation. 

There are twenty-three valuable brick, one stone and eight 
frame buildings. One other frame house was burnt April 25, 
1912, and will be replaced by a more substantial school build- 
ing. 

In addition to these schools the Board has for two years 
furnished two teachers for the Church Home School and for 
three years two teachers to the Leath Orphan School. 

The present Board of Education comprises, Dr. G. B. 
Malone, president; P. H. Phelan, Jr., vice-president; 0. I. 
Kruger, W. C. Edmondson, Chas. J. Haase, A. B. Hill, secre- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 425 

tary; Melvin Rice, assistant secretary and M. S. Buckingham, 
treasurer. 

The superintendent is Professor L. E. Wolfe; assistant 
superintendent, Professor Wharton S. Jones, and Miss Ella Orr 
is the superintendent's secretary. 

There have been and are numerous good private schools in 
Memphis, some of which have already been mentioned. 

One of the oldest of these, as heretofore shown, is St. Agnes 
Academy, a Catholic school for girls. This institution is now in 
its sixty-first year, having been founded in 1851, by Father 
T. L. Grace, and chartered in 1852. It was first placed under 
the care of six Dominican Sisters from St. Catharine, Kentucky, 
with Mother Superior Veronica Roy as supervisor. 

In May, 1878, most of the buildings of St. Agnes were 
destroyed by fire and a valuable library lost, but the following 
year a substantial building was erected. 

St. Agnes is delightfully situated, having kept a large part 
of its primitive forest trees, and its large grounds and groves, 
besides making a beautiful park for the students, is a joy to the 
thickly settled neighborhood in that part of the city. In those 
trees birds nest with the freedom and safety of the country, and 
delight the surrounding neighbors with their home-making songs 
and calls. 

By 1868 St. Agnes had grown so in popularity and its 
buildings had become so crowded that another Catholic school 
for girls was opened on Third Street between Poplar and Wash- 
ington Streets. This institution was called LaSalette Academy 
and was also conducted by Dominican Sisters. This school grew 
rapidly and its curriculum included a collegiate course. 

During 1878 and 1879 both this and the St. Agnes build- 
ings were used as hospitals and several Sisters succumbed to 
the yellow fever after having given their services to the care 
of the stricken. After the epidemics were over LaSalette again 
opened its doors as an academy and the Sisters taught success- 
fully for several years, but it has since been abandoned as a 
school and its large building is now used by the Nineteenth 
Century Club as studios for teachers of arts, while St. Agnes, 



426 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

with its large, well-equipped building accommodates more pupils 
than both schools formerly did. 

The Mother Superior of St. Agnes Academy is Mother 
Mary Pius. 

Later another Catholic school for girls was established in 
the old Clara Conway Building on Poplar Avenue, the Sacred 
Heart Institute. This school is also under Dominican Sisters, 
with Sister Alphonse, superioress. Girls are here prepared for 
Vassar, Trinity and other colleges. 

In 1858 the Reverend Stephen G. Starke founded a girls' 
school, the State Female College, on McLemore Avenue. He 
interested seven citizens who bought seven acres of land for the 
college and buildings were erected costing $60,000. President 
Starke died a year after the establishment of the school and the 
Reverend Samuel Watson took his place. This president was 
succeeded by the Reverend Charles Collins who, after conduct- 
ing the school successfully for a while, purchased it, becoming 
thus its owner as well as president. The school was very success- 
ful and girls from many States attended its sessions. It was in 
flourishing condition when the war broke out and continued its 
work uninterruptedly until the Federals occupied Memphis. 
They then took possession of the buildings and grounds and 
continued to use them to the end of the war. 

After the war the school was reopened but had a struggle 
to continue its work and the yellow fever epidemics completed 
its ruin. After the siege of 1879 there was an attempt to con- 
tinue its existence but the people of the city were so depressed 
and impoverished that the school failed for lack of patronage. 
When the charter expired the property was divided into lots 
and sold. In one of the buildings Miss Mollie IMarshall started 
a private school which she conducted for several years.* 

The main building has since been remodeled and converted 
into an apartment house. 

On November 19, 1871, the Brothers of the Christian 
Schools, an order founded in France in 1680, by St. John Bap- 

♦Vedder. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 427 

tist de La Salle, opened a college in Memphis under the direction 
of a few of the Brothers, with Brother Maurelian as president. 

The first installment paid on their school property was by 
popular subscription, and many furnished money for the 
advancement of the school. Bishop P. A. Feehan, then of Nash- 
ville, Tennessee, was largely instrumental in obtaining these 
subscriptions and in getting the college established in Memphis. 
One of the first financial aids these Brothers had was the pro- 
ceeds from a lecture by the Reverend Thomas N. Burke, on ' ' The 
Ruins of Ireland." 

The property purchased by this institution was formerly 
occupied by the "Memphis Female College," which had been 
established and chartered in 1854 by Rev. C. G. McPherson. 
This school had ceased to exist and in 1872 its charter was 
amended to provide for a college for boys. 

The Christian Brothers College was well patronized from 
the first and the accommodations were soon extended. In 1886 
improvements were made to the amount of $20,000 and addi- 
tional improvements have been made from time to time since 
then. A good gymnasium has been provided and the facilities 
for out-of-doors athletics are excellent. 

On June 7, 1912, the boys had their sixteenth annual Field 
Day exercises in which much proficiency was shown in physical 
training. 

The revised charter of 1872 empowered this college to 
confer A. B. and A. M. degrees. 

Brother Maurelian continued the faithful president of the 
college until a few years ago when he felt the need of rest and 
retired. He left Memphis for a while but was made President 
Emeritus and continued to be revered as the father of the 
school. He is again with the institution, as faithful as ever in 
the work. 

Brother Maurelian is justly proud of the Christian Brothers' 
schools and of the one in Memphis especially, which he has seen 
grow from infancy to its present manly proportions. 

The year closing June 18, 1912, the College conferred 
degrees upon ten young men and commercial diplomas on four. 



428 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

The present officers of the College are the Reverends Brother 
Maurelian, president emeritus; Brother J. Edward, president; 
Brother C. Victor, vice-president; Brother Athanasius, secre- 
tray; and Brother Leander, treasurer. 

In 1873 three Episcopal Sisters of the Community of St. 
Mary's Episcopal Church, were sent from New York to Mem- 
phis, at the request of Bishop Quintard. These good women 
nursed through the epidemic of that year and after it was over 
they opened a school for girls in the residence of the Bishop 
on Poplar Street, next to St. Mary's Church, calling the school 
St. Mary's School. 

Its patronage enabled the supervisors to extend their quar- 
ters the next year beside the cathedral. In 1878 a brick build- 
ing was commenced but the epidemic interfered with its com- 
pletion ; however it has since been completed since which time 
it has been the school home of many girls and young women. 

During 1878-9 the three Sisters of the institute gave their 
services to nursing the sick and two of these brave souls for- 
feited their own lives in the cause, one being the Sister Superior 
and the other Sister Thecla. Sister Hughetta survived and 
resumed the school work later, where she continued to labor in 
the cause of education many years, when Sister Mary Maud 
took her place and she was succeeded by Sister Anna Christine. 

The standard of this school has been high from the begin- 
ning and many of the noblest women in Memphis received their 
moral and intellectual inspiration under the good women of 
St. Mary's. 

The Sisters continued to teach in St. Mary's school until 
1910, when a change in the Sisterhood caused the Sisters here 
to be withdrawn. They then turned the school over to Misses 
Helen E. Loomis and Mary H. Paoli as principals, with an 
excellent corps of teachers throughout. Miss Loomis, having 
had much experience in the school, could easily take its man- 
agement in charge, and Miss Paoli is a first-class primary 
teacher, which means in this day of high primary advancement, 
that she fills a very important place as teacher-mother to the 
little ones under her care. Beside these two finished teachers 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 429 

there are eight others, all efficient and equal to maintaining the 
high standard of the school, and girls are accepted from here 
into the best colleges. Out of six graduates this closing year, 
four of the young ladies have determined to go to Cornell next 
year. The school had nearly one hundred students in 1912, 
from tiny tots to young ladies preparing for college. 

In this institution special attention is given to English, 
music and dramatic work, the teachers of these departments 
having had splendid advantages and experience in their arts. 

The school property at present belongs to Bishop Gailor, 
who purchased it a few months ago from the Sisters. 

In 1875 the Presbyterian Grammar and High School for 
girls was founded by the Reverends W. E. Boggs, Eugene 
Daniel, J. 0. Steadman and E. M. Richardson, and Messrs. J. L. 
Welford, G. W. Macrae, J. C. Neely, Wm. Joyner and J. M. 
Goodbar. 

The principal selected for this new school was Miss Jennie 
Higbee, who had for ten years been principal of the Memphis 
High School. The school was opened in the Bethel Building, 
corner of Adams Street and Charleston Avenue, and the first 
year one hundred and fifty pupils were enrolled, of which 
number sixteen graduated at the end of the term. 

After conducting this school successfully for three years 
Miss Higbee resigned and established a school of her own in 
the St. Mary's building on Poplar Street, but in 1880 the Sisters 
occupied all this building and Miss Higbee moved to a beautiful 
site on the corner of Lauderdale and Beale Streets, in the old 
Robertson Topp home. 

In 1892 the officers of the Board of Trustees of this school 
were Messrs. John Overton, Jr., president; N. Fontaine, vice- 
president; John Johnson, secretary and J. A. Omberg, treas- 
urer. 

In its new home the Higbee school continued to expand and 
became one of the best girls' schools in the South. Miss Higbee, 
in addition to being an excellent teacher and school manager, 
was a good business woman, and while the school was fortunate 
enough to have some of the leading men of the city for its 



430 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

trustees and stock-holders, the chief management was carried 
on by the principal until her death in 1903. At this time the 
school had a large corps of teachers and had won for itself a 
high reputation. Miss Higbee will always be revered as one 
of the early educators of Memphis and a classic monument in 
Overton Park is one proof of how her memory is held in Mem- 
phis. 

The city has become compactly built all around the Higbee 
School, but the buildings of the institution hold their solemn 
dignity on the hill that overlooked woodlands when it became a 
school. Now there are few old trees to be seen in the neighbor- 
hood besides the grand old veterans of this hill. 

The home building of the original owners still stands, a 
picturesque old colonial house, and is used as the home of the 
school-boarders, where it is the aim of the teachers to throw 
around the girls a home atmosphere. The school building is 
a large brick structure fronting on Beale Avenue, well ventilated 
and heated. 

On the demise of Miss Higbee, one of the valuable teachers, 
Miss Mary E. Pimm, was appointed business manager and 
another experienced and valuable member of the faculty, Miss 
Hattie L. White, was elected principal by the Board of Mana- 
gers, who were : Messrs. G. W. Macrae, president ; 0. B. Polk, 
E. Carrington, E. L. Menager and H. H. Higbee. 

In 1908 the board dissolved and Misses White and Pimm 
leased the school, which is at the present time under their man- 
agement. The Higbee School occupies three buildings and has 
three acres of ground. The enrollment is limited to one hundred 
seventy-five and the number of boarders to thirty. The prin- 
cipal lives on the place and the boarders are under the care of 
an efficient matron and two governesses. 

The curriculum begins with Kindergarten and is taken 
from this important foundation of education to preparation for 
college. Graduates are accepted by Wellsley, Smith, Agnes 
Scott and other colleges. One Kindergarten principle carried 
throughout the grades is that of learning the individual nature 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 431 

of and peculiar bent of each pupil and basing her management 
on this knowledge. 

In 1877, Miss Clara Conway, a woman of high intellect and 
splendid education, and who had also been a teacher and prin- 
cipal in the public schools, established a girls' school on Poplar 
Street with one assistant and sixty-eight pupils. Her aim was 
to give advantages such as had not yet been introduced into 
Memphis. In this school a Kindergarten was conducted, and 
many people who had before known nothing of Kindergarten 
work, or looked upon its method of teaching as useless or even 
absurd, learned of the vital principle underlying Kindergarten 
training, which had taken Frederick Froebel many years to 
formulate. The little children learned unconsciously and surely, 
getting comprehension and knowledge that gave them a sub- 
stantial foundation for future education and life, while seem- 
ingly they only played, used their little hands as well as minds, 
and were happily occupied. 

Miss Conway also introduced into her school physical 
culture, free-hand drawing and other branches that required 
mind and hand, and tried to impress on her patrons the import- 
ance of educating children in their three-fold nature — moral, 
mental and physical. 

This school grew rapidly and by 1885 had 270 pupils 
enrolled. In this year a stock-company was formed for the 
purpose of founding an incorporated school. The trustees were 
Messrs. H. T. Lemmon, J. C. Neely, G. W. Macrae, T. H. 
Milburn, J. K. Speed, W. F. Taylor, W. A. Collier, P. Mclntyre, 
Elias Lowenstein, E. L. McGowan, John Johnson, George 
Arnold, Clara Conway, Henry Frank, Z. N. Estes, W. S. Bruce, 
W. M. Randolph, S. Hirsh, A. W. Newsom, T. J. Latham and 
Reverend H. A. Jones. 

Under this incorporation the school was named the Clara 
Conway Institute and a large school building was erected on 
Poplar Street. The school soon outgrew this building and a 
large modern brick structure was erected, most beautifully 
fitted up, among its treasures being some rare pictures and 
sculpture. 



432 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

In 1888 there were over 300 pupils in the school and a 
corps of 26 teachers besides Miss Conway, who was principal, 
many of the teachers being graduates of the institution. The 
officers of the Board at this time were Messrs. John K. Speed, 
president ; T. J. Latham, vice-president ; J. H. Shepherd, secre- 
tary and T. H. Milburn, treasurer. 

The classical course of the school consisted of eleven years' 
work, and the last year included trigonometry, Horace, Hero- 
dotus, history of philosophy, history of art, English literature, 
course of historical reading, political economy and civil govern- 
ment. 

This institution flourished for years, standing for refine- 
ment and intellectual progress, many leading educators of the 
country complimenting its work, but too much ambition on the 
part of the principal for all school and aesthetic advantages 
caused the business part of the enterprise to fail and finally 
an institution that had become a power, succumbed, at a time 
when financial conditions of the country were at low ebb. 

Miss Conway still persisted in educational work and had 
private classes of high rank. This educator would no doubt have 
had another school but the same year that took Miss Higbee 
from human work took Miss Conway also and, like her contem- 
porary, she has been honored with a beautiful memorial in 
Overton Park by grateful pupils and admiring friends. 

Professor Wharton S. Jones came to Memphis in 1881 and 
opened a school for boys. This venture prospered and four 
years later Professor Jones bought the old Grace Church on 
Hernando (now South Third) Street and had the building con- 
verted into a school-house. This school was known as the Mem- 
phis Institute and had a good enrollment every year for many 
years, but Professor Jones broadened his sphere of action and 
benefitted Memphis education still more in 1903 by joining the 
public schools where, as assistant-superintendent, he has given 
faithful service, as already shown in the part of this chapter 
given to the public schools. 

The year following the establishment of the Memphis Insti- 
tute, the Rolfe Grammar School was started by Robert Mayo 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 433 

Rolfe, B. A., principal ; Lawrence Rolfe, B. A. ; and Theophilus 
Root, B. A. This school prepared boys for college and had a 
commercial department. The original number of pupils was 
limited to twenty-four but there was so many applications for 
admission that the school was enlarged and flourished for a 
number of years but the teachers have since connected them- 
selves with other interests. 

''The University School was established in Memphis in 
1893. The purpose is to provide a school where boys and young 
men may be prepared for the leading technical schools and 
colleges of the country, or given substantial training in the 
various branches of a liberal education which will fit them for 
the duties and responsibilities of life, and at the same time 
develop them into Christian gentlemen." 

This is the opening paragraph of a chapter in the year-book 
of the Memphis University School. This institution of learning 
has kept up its high standard and only admits boys of good 
moral character to its advantages, and that boys may receive 
individual attention, the number is limited. 

Graduates of this school are accepted by the highest colleges, 
and Vanderbilt, Harvard and Princeton have allowed students 
to take their examinations here for acceptance into their own 
doors. The "Washington and Lee University "has conferred a 
scholarship upon this school, which entitles the winner thereof 
to a free tuition in the University." Hampden-Sidney, Tulane 
and Central Universities also give scholarships to this school. 

In 1899 a brick building was erected on the splendid site 
at the corner of Madison and Manassas Streets for the use of 
this school and each year the campus has been beautified, making 
the school and its environs an additional attraction to the city. 

Facilities for athletics, both indoors and outside have 
received much attention and every boy in the school is urged 
to take part in one branch of the school athletics while each is 
required to take instruction in gymnastic work. This school 
has carried off honors in a number of athletic contests. 

The faculty of the M. U. S. comprises: Edwin Sydney 
"Werts and James W. S. Rhea, principals; Howard G. Ford, 



434 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Charles C. Wright, John B. McAlister, Robert E. Denny, Arthur 
T. Brown, Lee MeB. White and W. T. Watson. 

The average enrollment for the year just closed was between 
one hundred forty and one hundred fifty pupils. 

A more recent girls' school than the ones written of above, 
is a select school for young ladies on Adams Avenue, conducted 
by the Misses Thomas. Miss Lida G. Thomas is principal and 
she is a teacher of high attainments. This institution, though 
one of recent establishment, has already won success and gives 
promise of most excellent future work and results. 

Another recent school — one for boys — is the ]\Iiller School 
on Madison Avenue. Professor Phipps Miller is principal and 
he has high ambition for the young boys entrusted to his care. 
This is a school that gives promise of expansion and at present 
it is accommodated in temporary quarters only. 

A number of schools in the city are maintained for the 
purpose of giving business education only and these have had 
good patronage that has ever advanced wdth the growth of the 
city. The oldest of these was opened in 1864 by Prof. T. A. 
Leddin, an efficient teacher and promoter of business education, 
who conducted it until 1887, when he sold out to Professor W. T. 
Watson, an L. L. B. graduate of Cumberland University. Prof. 
Watson gave new impetus to the school, introducing advanced 
methods, and had a good enrollment. Under this management 
the school prospered many more years, when Mr. Watson in 
turn sold out to Mr. R. M. Hill, who is the present proprietor. 
Under Professor Hill's direction the school is rapidly expanding 
and is now one of the best business colleges in Tennessee. 

Another well established and well-equipped business insti- 
tution is Draughon's Practical Business College, with Mr. Wm. 
T. Davis as manager, a practical school, conducted for the 
purpose of training practical business people. 

Nelson's Business College is also an institution that has 
fitted many men and women of Memphis and the surrounding 
country for the business world, and it has an efficient corps of 
teachers. Professor Threlkeld, the principal, has long been an 
inspiring genius of this institution. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 435 

Two excellent competitors of these business schools are the 
Macon and Andrews College, of which Professor G. A. Macon 
is president and Prof. A. A. Andrews, vice-president; and the 
Memphis Business College, with Prof. John T. Thomas, prin- 
cipal. 

Still another business college is connected with the Univer- 
sity of Memphis, one of the numerous branches of this enter- 
prise established in Memphis under an Act of the Legislature of 
1909. George B. Frasher, C. P. A., is dean of this business 
department. 

The various medical schools are mentioned in the Medical 
chapter, and another professional school that shows the ever 
broadening sphere of education in Memphis is the College of 
Law established in 1909, as one of the departments of the 
University of Memphis. This school tills a long-felt need in the 
city and vicinity, and has a faculty of most excellent professional 
men. For the session ending 1911, these were: 

"Hon. S. Walter Jones, Dean, a well-known author of law 
text-books ; Hon. Julian C. Wilson, ex-Chancellor of Mississippi ; 
Hon. Eoyal E. Maiden, ex-Judge of Tennessee, trial attorney for 
the Memphis Street Railway Company; Hon. Allen Hughes, 
ex-Judge of Arkansas; Gen. David A. Frayser, one of the best 
criminal lawyers in the State ; Hon. John E. McCall, United 
States District Judge, and Hon. H. Dent Minor, Judge of the 
Chancery Court and authority on law." 

The first noteworthy educational advantages for colored people 
were offered in the public schools before the war closed, as already 
shown, and the first private school of any magnitude was Le 
Moyne Institute, which was established in 1871 by the American 
Missionary Association. This Association had conducted a few 
private schools here before, but in 1870 Dr. F. Julius Le Moyne 
donated $20,000 for founding a school in Memphis, and the 
following year the Missionary Association, in whose charge the 
money had been placed, erected a building on Orleans Street, 
spending $9,000 of the fund and leaving $11,000 for an endow- 
ment fund. This school has continued operations ever since, 



436 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

receiving in addition to annual money from the fund, tuition 
from the pupils, though this is not a great amount. 

A good literary course is provided from the primary to 
normal training. Manual training was introduced early into 
the school, the leaders recognizing the fact that this practical 
need was the greatest among the colored people. In the eighties 
there was a printing-shop in which the pupils were taught to 
set type, etc., and a carpenter-shop, where boys learned the use 
of tools and how to handle them. An experimental kitchen was 
fitted up for the girls, where they were taught cooking and other 
household duties, and a sewing-room, in which plain and fancy 
sewing were taught. 

In the beginning all the teachers of this institution were 
white, furnished by the Missionary Association, but as colored 
students became fitted for imparting knowledge they were made 
teachers and now only the principal and two or three other 
teachers are white. Many good teachers have been trained in 
this school, some of whom are now teaching in the city and 
county schools with satisfaction, and it is commonly said that a 
servant trained in Le Moyne is usually a good one. 

The pupils are taught industry, self-respect and respect 
for others, which makes of them good workmen and law-abid- 
ing citizens. Some of the brightest and most upright members 
of the colored race in our midst are the products of Le Moyne 
teaching. The principal is Ludwig T. Larson. 

On St. Paul Street is to be found another colored school 
that is doing splendid work. This school was opened in 1891 
by the American Baptist Home Missionary Society, for the 
purpose of educating colored children for intelligent, capable 
workers, and trying to counteract the indolence and conse- 
quent mischief so prevalent with this race. 

Peter Howe of Illinois gave an endowment to the institu- 
tion, not sufficient to support it, but a very substantial founda- 
tion for the work. The pupils are charged a nominal board 
and tuition, and positions are obtained in families for boys 
where, mornings and evenings, they can earn money to pay 
their way through school, and they can help themselves still 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 437 

more if room and board can be obtained from their employers. 
Girls are required to board in the school dormitory or at 
some place approved by the principal, though they are allowed 
to work by the hour in order to earn or help earn their way. 

Special attention is given to industrial work, as an import- 
ant part of the education of the race. The Gas and Electric 
Company has fitted up a room with electric and gas ranges 
free of charge, where girls are taught cooking and economical 
and prudent use of fuel and materials generally. 

The principal of Howe is a minister, T. 0. Fuller, a man 
who came to the institution recommended by Hon. R. B. Glenn, 
the Governor of North Carolina, who called him "an indus- 
trious citizen and a safe leader of his race." It is Principal 
Fuller's plan to add continually to the industrial features 
which he says are not adequate to the demand, and he is having 
an efficient teacher trained at Tuskegee to take charge of the 
trades. He wants the boys to study carpentry, kalsomining, 
paper-hanging, brick-laying, painting, grading, gardening, 
upholstery, printing and other useful trades, and the girls to 
become intelligent and skilful dress-makers, plain-seamstresses, 
domestic servants, nurses, etc. 

Out of two hundred graduates in sixteen years, 13 have 
become stenographers and typewriters, 16 teachers, 5 physi- 
cians, 5 ministers, 1 music-teacher, 2 dentists, 2 seamstresses, 
1 trained nurse, 1 printer, several first-class domestics and 
several others skilled workmen. The school boasts that 
"Hundreds have worked their way through Howe, and are 
living lives of honor and usefulness." 

The new dormitory building in which are also the experi- 
mental kitchen, sewing-rooms, reception-room and assembly 
hall, was built with $5,000, given by the General Education 
Board and $4,200 by Mr. Charles Howe, son of the founder. 
Each room in the dormitory is maintained by some church. 

Much good work has come from this school and in Sep- 
tember, 1911, the Howe school iook first prizes at the Knoxville 
Appalachian Exposition over colored schools of eight States 
in basketry and manual training, these being for the most 



438 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

unique invention, the best collection of wood furniture, the 
best single piece of wood furniture and the smallest basket, 
while the Howe Orchestral Club furnished music for the 
colored department at this exposition. 

This year the school had forty-eight graduates in the 
academic, normal and industrial courses. All the teachers in 
Howe belong to the colored race and they are men and women 
of upright character, who are earnestly trying to bring out 
the best in their pupils and make of them desirable citizens for 
the communities in which they are to live. 

There are still two other subjects to be treated in this chapter 
of great importance to both the City and County in educational 
equipment, namely, the State Normal School for West Ten- 
nessee, and the Industrial and Training School of Shelby County. 
The Legislature on April 26, 1909, passed an Act, Chapter 
580 of the Acts of that year, providing that counties and muni- 
cipalities should be authorized to issue $100,000.00 of 5 per 
cent bonds, each, for the purpose of purchasing and erecting 
and equipping buildings for a State Normal School. 

This act gave a great stimulus in West Tennessee to the 
cause of education, and, inasmuch, as Chapter 264 of the 
Acts passed at the same session had provided for the establish- 
ment of one school in each grand division of the State, there 
was great rivalry among the counties in West Tennessee in 
the effort to obtain the site for this school. As early as the 
10th of May, 1909, at a meeting of the City Board of Educa- 
tion, Mr. C. C. Ogilvie of the Board offered a resolution that 
the Board declare itself in favor of a location of the State 
Normal School of West Tennessee at Memphis, and directing 
a committee to be appointed to confer with the County and 
Municipal authorities, and educational, patriotic and business 
organizations, and obtain their financial and moral support in 
the effort to secure its location here. The committee was 
appointed and conferred with representative bodies and indi- 
viduals with the result that a meeting was called to assemble 
at the Board of Education rooms. At this meeting it was 
determined to make a winning fight for the great school for 




V ii,£'£^- Pl^/f^i^ SBr^My 




History of Memphis, Tennessee. 439 

Memphis and Shelby County, as the State had never done 
anything for Memphis up to that time in the way of providing 
educational institutions. A strong executive committee was 
appointed to carry out the plans, composed of the following 
well-known citizens : 

C. C. Ogilvie, City Board of Education, Chairman; Whar- 
ton S. Jones, City Schools; Ernest Miller, County Board of 
Education; Miss Mabel C. Williams, County Schools; Mrs. 
J. M. McCormack, Tennessee Federation of Women's Clubs; 
Dr. Lillian W. Johnson, Chairman of the Education Committee 
of the Tennessee Federation, and Nineteenth Century Club; 
Miss Cora Ashe, Miss Mamie E. Caine, Teachers Educational 
League ; F. W. Faxon, President, and Francis Fentress, Jr., 
Business Men 's Club ; James F. Hunter, vice-president of Union 
and Planters Bank and Trust Company ; 0. I. Kruger, Work- 
ingmen's Civic League and Board of Education; Abe Cohn, 
president Y. M. H. A.; J. W. McClure, secretary Lumbermen's 
Club; Rev. John C. Molloy, Pastor's Association; Dr. R. B. 
Maury, C. C. Hanson and E. B. LeMaster, City Club; Tate 
Pease, Merchants' Exchange ; J. S. Williams, Cotton Exchange ; 
Dr. B. F. Turner, Civic League ; A. G. Kimbrough, County 
Court; Mayor J. H. Malone, City Council; Thomas B. King, 
Y. M. C. A. ; Robert Galloway, Park Commissioner ; D. M. 
Crawford, Builders' Exchange; C. P. J. Mooney, Commercial 
Appeal; W. M. Clemmens, News Scimitar; R. B. Young, The 
Press ; Dr. G. B. Thornton, Medical Association ; Judge J. P. 
Young, Brother Maurelian and Rabbi M. Samfield. 

This Executive Committee organized a Finance Committee 
of one hundred and fifteen prominent business and professional 
men and women with Mr. J. F. Hunter as chairman, and Miss 
Mabel Williams, County Supterintendent of Education, and 
later Mr. John W. Farley, as secretary, and work was begun in 
earnest. The County Court was applied to by a special com- 
mittee and promptly agreed to issue the $100,000.00 of bonds 
authorized by the legislative act. The city likewise was gracious 
and directed a like issue of bonds. 

It was at first planned to raise by a popular subscription 



440 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

$100,000.00 cash to supplement the bond issue, but when about 
$25,000.00 had been subscribed the plan was abandoned, and it 
was agreed to appeal to the City and County to issue each 
$50,000.00 additional of bonds to complete the dormitories and 
other improvements and make the burden fall equally upon all 
of the people. This was done and the County Court granted a 
further bond issue of $50,000.00, and this was followed by the 
City with a like subscription when the legislative approval had 
been obtained in both cases. And still later the County Court 
increased its supplemental bond issue from fifty to one hundred 
thousand dollars, making a total of $350,000.00 raised for pro- 
moting the great school. 

Various sites were tendered, eleven in number, including 
one offered by J. H. Creath, three miles east of the City on the 
Southern Railway, which carried with at a donation of $50,000.00 
in value of real estate. Seige was then laid to the State Board 
of Education for the award of the site. Competition in other 
counties was strong and the Board hesitated. In October, 1909, 
they made a visit to Memphis and were given a banquet at the 
Gayoso Hotel at which urgent addresses were made in behalf 
of Memphis by Hon. Luke E. Wright, Bishop Thomas F. Gailor, 
Professor Wharton S. Jones, J. P. Young, Dr. Lillian Johnson, 
and other citizens. 

On December 1st the State Board met at Nashville to select 
a site. A committee composed of C. C. Hanson, Prof. Wharton 
S. Jones, and Thos. C. Looney, went up from Memphis with 
instructions to stay until the fight was won. This was done, and 
after a continuous session of more than two days, in which the 
Governor, Hon. M. R. Patterson, a member of the State Board, 
strongly supported his home city, the Board unanimously 
awarded the site of the school to Memphis. 

The State Board of Education appointed a building com- 
mittee composed of Professor R. L. Bynum of Jackson, Tenn., 
and J. F. Hunter of Memphis, members of the State Board of 
Education, S. A. Mynders, president of the school, J. P. Young 
and C. C. Hanson of Memphis. 

Work was begun in June, 1911, and pressed forward with 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 441 

all diligence. The buildings have just been completed and will 
be ready for occupancy and the opening of the school on Sep- 
tember 10, 1912. The total cost of the school buildings and 
equipment, including thirty-two acres additional of land pur- 
chased, will be over half a million dollars. The buildings at 
present include the Main or Administration Building, a magni- 
ficent structure with a frontage of 330 feet and embelished with 
massive stone columns in front, and being several stories in 
height, with ample room for administering a Normal School of 
two thousand or more pupils ; a dormitory three hundred feet in 
length, containing one hundred thirty rooms for the accommo- 
dation of young women ; a president 's house of splendid design ; 
besides power house and other equipment features. The build- 
ing is located three miles eastward of the city limits on a site 
unsurpassed for picturesque surroundings, and it is the determi- 
nation of the people of Memphis to make of it, both in construc- 
tion and equipment and beauty of surroundings, a Normal 
School unequalled by any other in the entire South. The School 
is furnished with artesian water from a well four hundred feet 
deep, with electric lights, gas, sewerage, and all other modern 
features for proper comfort and sanitation. 

The members of the Executive Committee and Finance 
Committee, as loyal builders of Memphis, individually and col- 
lectively, worked with all energy and devotion, and are entitled 
to equal credit for this grand achievement in behalf of Memphis. 
The city, itself, will gain, both in educational and financial bless- 
ings, from this school in the years to come more than can now be 
estimated. 

In accordance with an Act passed April 10, 1895, the County 
Court of Shelby County considered in the summer of 1903 the 
question of establishing an Industrial and Training School for 
Shelby County. The Act provided that such school might be 
established by any county or municipal corporation. In this 
case it was inaugurated by the county. But as Memphis, owing 
to its great population and wealth is essentially Shelby County 
and as it has supplied with few exceptions all the inmates and 



442 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

trustees in charge of the school, it may be treated as a Memphis 
institution. 

This scheme was promoted by and was brought about by the 
activity of certain ladies of the Needy Circle of The King's 
Daughters in this City, who persisted in their labors until the 
County Court finally took hold of it and provided the means for 
establishing the school. 

When all the obstacles had been cleared away and certain 
litigation disposed of, the judges of the Courts of Law and 
Equity in the County, appointed, under the provision of the law, 
the trustees for administering the school. The first board of 
trustees consisted of Judge C. W. Heiskell, Mistress Percy B. 
Russell, Mistress W. A. McNeill, and James A. Omberg, Sr. W. 
H. Bingham, chairman of the County Court was ex-officio a 
member of the Board. At organization on September 10, 1903, 
Judge Heiskell was made president of the Board, Mistress W. A. 
McNeill, secretary, and Mr. Omberg, treasurer. On November 
21, 1903, the Board deceded to buy the farm of 395 acres known 
as the Asa Hatch Place near Bartlett and about fourteen miles 
from the city as a site for the school, the sum paid being $9,000. 
December 1st, 1904, the trustees awarded the contract for the 
new brick building to be used as a dormitory and school, for 
$14,973.00. 

The grounds selected for the buildings are very beautiful, 
being a rounded hill of gentle slope and covered with a forest 
of splendid oaks. The railway station on the L. & N. Railroad 
at the foot of the hill in front has been aptly named Altruria. 
The buildings are of brick with dormitories, school rooms, etc., 
and afford accommodations for seventy or eighty boys. Recently 
$15,000.00 has been appropriated by the County Court to build 
an annex for the accommodation of girls, also an auxiliary build- 
ing for colored boys. 

The school has excited much interest among the people of 
Memphis and since its foundation nearly three hundred way- 
ward boys and homeless little orphans have been provided for 
in the institution and given a course of moral, mental and 
physical training to their vast benefit. The commitments of boys 




.^J^^c^i^^y^^^lC'/^'y^-^^^ 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 443 

were under the original law made by the Judges of the Law and 
Equity Courts, and the trustees have been appointed by the same 
judicial officers thus obtaining a very high grade of men and 
women for this important board. Under an act passed in 1911 
the Juvenile Court of Memphis is also given the power of com- 
mitment. 

The trustees, since the establishment of the school, have 
been Mistress "W. A. McNeill, Mistress Percy B. Russell, Mistress 
Eugene L. Milburn, Judge C. W. Heiskell, Mr. J. A. Omberg, 
Sr., Mr. J. F, Hunter, Judge A. S. Buchanan, Cyrus Garnsey, 
Jr., T. B. King, F. T. Edmundson, B. R. Miller, C. C. Hanson, 
and Walter H. Harrison. The Chairmen of the County Court, 
who have been ex-officio members of the board of trustees have 
been W. H. Bingham, J. H. Barret, A. G. Kimbrough, J. F. 
Williams and W. A. Taylor. The present Board of Trustees are : 
Mistress W. A. McNeill, Mistress Eugene Milburn, Mr. C. C. 
Hanson, Mr. Walter H. Harrison and Mr. W. A. Taylor. When 
the new girls' annex and colored boys' building, recently pro- 
vided for, have been constructed and equipped and the tillable 
lands brought into use, the institution will be one of the most 
important and valuable of its kind in the Southern States. 



7^ 



CHAPTER XIX 



The Press 



^"Y^HE GROWTH of a modern city is more or less dependent 
l|L upon the Press. Newspapers convey the news to the 
^■^ people, act as a medium between people of all classes 
and trades, give notices meant to reach the populace, talk for a 
community or part of a community, and if the editors are broad 
and intellectual and have the ability to impart their wisdom 
through the columns of their papers, these papers become a great 
educational force. 

The first newspaper was established in Memphis when the 
Bluff City was a very small village and largely made up of people 
who did not read. But IMemphis has always had some cultured 
people from her earliest days and these citizens have sought to 
build the city along elevated lines. Some of the early fathers 
deemed journalism an essential and in January, 1827 "The 
Memphis Advocate and Western District Intelligencer" was 
established, with Thomas Phoebus as editor. This paper was set 
up in the old meeting house, becoming the center of much curi- 
osity and some attention. It appeared once a week, and not- 
withstanding its name, had a fairly good circulation, but it 
was generally considered a useless expense and was not taken 
by the citizens at large. 

Mr. Phoebus had a partner and they maintained the paper 
until 1833, when they sold out to James and McLellan. When 
the Advocate and Intelligencer was obout four years old the 
"Western Times and Memphis Commercial Advertiser," another 
weekly, was published by T. Woods & Company, but Memphis 
could not, or did not, support two papers, and after a short life 
the Times was consolidated with the Advocate, the joint publica- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 445 

tion becoming The Times and Advocate. Later still, after these 
papers had been published jointly, a little over a year, they 
separated and tried individual existence once more, each taking 
its original name, but separation must have been disadvanta- 
geous because in a few months one of them failed and soon 
after the other succumbed. 

Perhaps a new paper that appeared in 1834 had something 
to do with their demise. This new sheet was The Memphis 
Gazette, with Mr. P. G. Gaines, an able editor, and Mr. McMurray 
a partner in the enterprise. This paper was Democratic and 
vigorous in its support of Andrew Jackson and his administra- 
tion. In 1838 the Gazette also ended its existence. 

The same year that saw the birth of the Memphis Gazette, 
witnessed another infant newspaper at Randolph, — the then 
rival of Memphis, — called The Recorder. The editor of this 
sheet was F. S. Latham, who tried to make Randolph popular 
and to set it above Memphis, but the Fates favored the latter 
town and Mr. Latham, seeing the possibilities of the more 
southern village, sold his little paper and came here. In 1836 
he issued a new Memphis paper. The Memphis Enquirer, that 
became rival to another paper that had issued its first number 
a few weeks before. This rival paper was The Memphis Intelli- 
gencer, which soon acknowledged the superior power of the 
Enquirer by selling out its stock to the latter. The Enquirer was 
a Whig organ, opposing Andrew Jackson in his campaign of 
1836 and advocating Hugh L. White of Tennessee for the presi- 
dency. 

In 1838 Mr. Latham took a partner. Colonel Jesse H. 
McMahon. These two able editors continued the paper for three 
years, when Mr. Latham sold his interest to Messrs. J. B. Moseley 
and D. 0. Dooley. The paper continued under the new firm, 
with Colonel McMahon as editor, and it became a semi-weekly, 
so adding to its strength. It continued a Whig organ and sup- 
ported Harrison and Tyler for the head of the government in 
1840. The Enquirer continued successful and four years after 
this exciting campaign between Harrison and Van Buren, fol- 
lowed a still more exciting one between Clay and Polk, and the 
little Memphis paper upheld the Whig candidate, Clay, who was 



446 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

probably the most popular man ever defeated. Polk, the Dem- 
ocratic candidate, was that year elected. 

There was also a Democratic paper here at that time, the 
Appeal, which will be noticed further on, with Colonel Van Pelt 
as editor. He and Colonel McMahon were formidable rivals, each 
being a man of force of character and strong convictions. Each 
man was enterprising too and did all in his power to make his 
sheet a shining mark of the locality. 

Another strong Whig paper which had been started in Mem- 
phis January, 1842, was the Eagle. After Mr. F. S. Latham had 
withdrawn from the Enquirer he set up this new paper in Fort 
Pickering, first calling it The Weekly American Eagle. Its exist- 
ence in that locality was short-lived and Mr. Latham moved to 
Howard's Row (now Union Avenue), at that time just on the 
south line of the city limits. Mr. H. L. Guion bought an interest 
in the Eagle, and it was published by Latham & Guion, the form- 
er being editor. After its removal the Enquirer became a tri- 
weekly and a year later a daily, its name then being changed to 
the Memphis Daily Eagle, the first daily of Memphis. In 1845 Mr. 
Latham bought the entire paper and continued its sole proprie- 
tor and editor until 1848, when he accepted a partner in Mr. 
Edward J. Carroll. Two years later the paper was sold to John 
P. Pryor and Mr. Pryor became its editor, publishing the daily 
and weekly until the Eagle and Enquirer consolidated.* 

Colonel McMahon and his partner, Mr. Moseley, introduced 
the first steam-power press used in Memphis, having it set up in 
the office of the Enquirer. In 1847 the Enquirer became a daily, 
at which time Colonel McMahon was still editor. Mr. D. O. 
Dooley was publisher, he having bought out Mr. Moseley. In 
1848 Mr. Charles Irving became assistant-editor but before the 
end of that year both he and Colonel McMahon retired from the 
paper. On this change Mr. R. J. Yancy became editor and one 
of the owners. In 1850 this little paper again changed hands, 
D. O. Dooley & Company becoming owners, with Colonel McMa- 
hon again editor. 

In 1851 the two Whig papers consolidated and became The 

*Mr. Pryor many years later became joint editor with Gen. Thos. 
Jordan, of a Life of Forrest. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 447 

Eagle and Enquirer. In 1848 each of these papers had sup- 
ported Zachary Taylor for President, as they had four years 
previously supported Henry Clay. 

The Appeal was again stanch for the Democrats and the two 
leading Memphis papers made thrusts at each other and at the 
opposing parties quite equal in force to those of our own day. 
Colonel Keating said of the papers of that day, "Very few 
papers in the West surpassed those of Memphis at that time." 
The Appeal had been a power since its beginning and had been 
one of the first papers to advance advertising. In 1837 it had 
printed bills, advertising for sale the property just south of 
Exchange Square and interest thus being brought to the locality 
many of the lots were sold and Memphis grew southward from 
that time. 

As years passed the Eagle and Enquirer changed hands 
several times and political disagreements among members of 
the staff had become so bitter by 1855, when Pryor, Stockdale & 
Gray were the proprietors, that Colonel McMahon withdrew, 
after having served as editor for seventeen years. Two years 
after this time the paper with all of its equipment, was sold to 
the Franklin Typographical Union. Mr. L. D. Stickney was 
president of this company and Mr. J. J. Parham, secretary. In 
1859 another change occurred when the firm became L. D. Stick- 
ney & Company, with Dr. Solon Borland and Honorable Jere 
Clemens editors. The following year Doctor Borland bought the 
paper outright and was its proprietor and editor until 1861, 
when he sold out to Gallaway & Clusky, editors of the Avalanche, 
a Democratic paper that had been established January 12, 1858, 
by Col. M. C. Gallaway, and Southern in every sense of the 
word. Thus the Eagle and Enquirer was merged into the Ava- 
lanche, after having existed for twenty -five years. 

The telegraph had become an important factor of newspapers 
by this time, and news was obtained from all the important cities 
of the Union; while foreign news, after reaching New York or 
other seacoast cities was immediately telegraphed to inland towns. 
Memphis thus obtained foreign "news" in a little over half a 
month. 

The Memphis Weekly Appeal became a member of the Mem- 



448 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

phis press on April 21, 1841, with Colonel Henry Van Pelt its 
editor. This paper was successor as above stated to The Western 
World and Memphis Banner of the constitution,* and continued 
to assert the Democracy of its parent, which as a Democratic 
paper had succeeded the Gazette. In 1851 the Appeal was still 
flourishing under Colonel Van Pelt, though it had changed hands 
several times during its existence and in April of that year it 
celebrated its anniversary by thanking Democracy and the people 
for their long support. A few days after this anniversary Col. 
Van Pelt died and his loss was greatly felt, as he had been a force 
not only in newspaper growth but in the city's development. 
Colonel Keating has called this ardent newspaper man the 
"Father of the Memphis Press" and Mr. Vedder said of him: 
"His editorial ability was of a high order, and both as a thinker 
and writer he commanded the respect of political opponents as 
well as of party friends." 

After the decease of Colonel Van Pelt the Appeal was 
edited by Messrs. Edward Pickett & McClanahan, and in 1852 
Leon Trousdale became associate editor. The paper continued 
and grew, though several times during its career the Appeal had 
been burnt out. After one of these disasters on Front Row, near 
Madison, in 1855, the Eagle and Enquirer had tendered the 
Appeal the use of their press, type and other materials, which 
courtesy enabled the paper to appear at its stated times unin- 
terruptedly until setting up its own office again on Main Street, 
opposite the northwest corner of Court Square in an adjoining 
building with the Eagle and Enquirer. Both of these offices 
were later destroyed by fire and the Bulletin came to their assist- 
ance by lending its materials. So, even though the papers did 
denounce each other politically, in time of need they were 
brothers and friends. In 1860 Colonel Trousdale withdrew from 
the Appeal, which left Messrs. McClanahan & Dill, proprietors. 

When hot differences arose between sections of the country 
the Appeal never wavered in its stand for the Southern Confed- 
eracy. Hence when the Federals were seen coming down the 
river in the first days of June, 1862, and their superior force was 
known, it was thought that the Appeal had better be moved 

*Keating, page 213. 




£■,., ij^ Sa.Jttffiams SBraN^r 




History of Memphis, Tennessee. 449 

southward for safety as, if the Federals took Memphis, operations 
of the little paper that had grown to mean so much to the Army 
of Tennessee and the Southern States, would be stopped, or the 
office might be taken possession of and the paper turned into a 
Federal organ. 

To Mr. S. C. Toof, who was at that time connected with the 
Appeal, is due the expedition with which the paper's property 
was packed up and put onto a south-bound train. Mr. Toof had 
come from Canada when a lad of fourteen and had first started 
in his business career in Memphis as a printer boy for the Eagle 
and Enquirer in October, 1852. Since then he had espoused the 
cause of Memphis on all occasions and cast his lot with her 
fortunes. 

On the afternoon of June 5, the Federal boats were seen 
descending the river slowly and indications pointed to a river 
fight or a siege of the city. As night came on rockets illumined 
the sky and Memphis inhabitants were much wrought over the 
impending danger. Mr. Toof, after ascertaining that his wife 
and little children were safe, and that the fears of Mrs. Toof 
were allayed, went to the Appeal office where, with assistance, 
he worked until four o'clock the following morning getting the 
press and all the paper's outfit packed and on the train for 
Grenada, Mississippi. 

Thus the little Confederate organ was saved and in Grenada 
was published for several months, still a voice of the Southern 
people. The Federals again drove it away from Grenada, when 
it moved to Montgomery, Alabama. There its work was con- 
tinued only a short time, when another removal was necessary 
and this time Atlanta was its refuge. In that city the plucky 
little paper was still published on any sort of paper obtainable, 
wall-paper being used when more suitable materials were 
exhausted, just as carpets were ripped from floors and heavy 
curtains were taken from windows to serve as covering for Con- 
federate soldiers who had no blankets. 

Despite this exiled existence the paper was still published, 
under the name of the Memphis Daily Appeal, with correspond- 
ents in all the armies, when Sherman and his destructive soldiers 
besieged Atlanta. When that city fell still another move was 



450 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

hurriedly made and the paper taken to Columbus, Georgia, where 
it was at last captured and destroyed. 

The editor who had thus faced many dangers that the Con- 
federacy might retain a newspaper and the Southern Army be 
kept informed, was Mr. B. F. Dill. When the paper was finally 
captured he was arrested and placed under a $100,000 bond not to 
edit another issue of the Appeal. This occurred on April 16, 
1865, when the war was practically over. After the surrender 
the Appeal returned to Memphis and on November 5, 1865, Mr. 
Dill set up his paper again, still the Appeal and still Democratic, 
though the cause of secession was lost. Colonel McMahon became 
assistant-editor, and these two faithful newspaper men kept the 
Southern people informed of Southern news and feeling so far 
as it was possible in that reconstruction time of upheaval. 

The following year Mr. Dill died and his wife continued the 
paper until 1867, when Mr. J. S. C. Hogan, General Albert 
Pike and Mr. John Ainslie bought it. In 1868 the firm was again 
changed, this time being Ainslie, Keating & Company, with 
Colonel J. ]\I. Keating as editor. 

Colonel Keating had, in June, 1865, started a Democratic 
paper, the Commercial, the other papers here during that 
unsettled period being the Post, a radical paper published by 
John Eaton ; the Bulletin, which represented the Unionists ; the 
Ledger, edited by Whitmore Brothers; and the Argus whicli, 
during the entire period of the war had held neutral ground. 

The Avalanche continued to be published as long as possi- 
ble after the war broke out, but being managed by strictly Sou- 
thern men, it could not continue operations after the Federals 
captured Memphis. In the latter part of 1861 it was consoli- 
dated with the Bulletin and in April, 1862, Colonel Gallaway sold 
his interest to Jeptha Fowlkes and Samuel Bard. He himself 
entered the Confederate Army, where he served to the close. 
Just as soon after the war as he could get ready for work, which 
was January 1, 1866, he reopened the Avalanche office and the 
paper continued its career along with its contemporary, the 
Appeal. Its new firm comprised Gallaway, Pollard & Company, 
with Colonel Gallaway, editor-in-chief. 

In 1870, after several changes had been made in the owner- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 451 

ship and staff, Colonel Gallaway sold his interest in the Avalanche 
to Colonel A. J. Kellar. 

Soon after the war the Southwestern Press Association was 
organized at the Gayoso Hotel, with Colonel J. H. MeMahon, 
chairman. At this meeting Colonel Keating was elected presi- 
dent; J. W. Kingsley, secretary; and J. M. Roberts, treasurer. 
The object of this association was to facilitate methods of getting 
news quickly, but the association had difficulty in carrying out 
its plans as, although the war was over, the Federals still con- 
trolled the telegraphs and railroads, and prevented Southern 
papers, to a great extent from getting reliable reports of facts 
and opinions expressed by Southern people.* 

This Northern control caused many misrepresentations to be 
published of Southern occurrences and thought, and these were 
taken advantage of by unscrupulous workers of the press. If 
the Association could have had their rightful power much com- 
fort would have been rendered the defeated Southern people and 
their burdens lightened. Colonel Keating says: "Abuses that 
grew apace as they were encouraged by Congress might have 
found a quicker remedy, and the Union have been really restored 
some years earlier," if the Press Association had had free play. 

In 1868 Memphis papers were doing fairly well, but the 
carpet-bag rule was still in sway, so Southern editors were often 
punished for daring to express themselves. Gallaway, Rhea & 
McClusky were editors of the Avala7iche at that time and they 
did not hesitate to criticise the manner in which justice, so called, 
was administered. The criminal judge in Memphis that year. 
Judge William Hunter, was a Northern man and bitter partisan, 
and he showed his contempt for the Southern people on several 
occasions. The Avalanche censured him in its columns, repre- 
senting him as Southern people considered him, which was not 
flattering. 

For this all three editors were arrested for contempt of 
court. Each man was fined ten dollars for the first contempt of 
court and ten dollars each again for the second contempt, with 
imprisonment until fine and costs were paid and for ten days 
thereafter. That was for two cases and for a third citation the 

*Keating. 



452 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

judge issued against them, he caused imprisonment until certain 
interrogatories should be answered. This revengeful justice also 
fined the city-editor of the Avalanche, Mr. John M. Campbell, 
ten dollars and imprisonment for "libel." Two days after the 
above decision this judge ordered that in four other cases stand- 
ing against Gallaway, Rhea & McClusky, each defendant be fined 
fifty dollars in each case, with imprisonment until fines and costs 
in all cases be paid and until the defendants answered inter- 
rogatories of the court. These defendants demurred and 
they were taken to jail, but were released on a writ of habeas 
corpus, sued out before Judge Waldron. Judge Hunter was so 
furious at this proceeding that he ordered the arrest of Judge 
Waldron, having the order served late at night.* But human 
endurance, even of the defeated, has a limit, and this arbitrary 
act of Judge Hunter's proved the last straw for some of the 
citizens. The city-editor and sixteen companions disguised them- 
selves as members of the Ku Klux Klan and visited the arrogant 
official. After this visit Judge Hunter closed his court until 
his personal safety was assured. 

The cases of the accused editors ' ' hung fire, ' ' as the lawyers 
say, for several months, the defendants being alternately remand- 
ed to jail and released on habeas corpus or supersedeas. All 
this dallying of the defendants' counsel was a ''fighting for 
time," Colonel Keating says, Judge Hunter all the while losing 
favor in the community. The case was taken up by the Memphis 
bar and in a meeting of the bar association July 11, 1868, a 
report and resolutions on the "Avalanche contempt case," were 
passed. The committee reported: 

"The law provides the remedy for private and public 
wrongs by defamatory publications, by an action for damages and 
by indictment, and the defendant may give the misconduct of the 
bench in evidence. But a judge must submit to the same test of 
truth as other men, all being equal in this respect before the law. 
He has no right to drag an offender before him for a libelous pub- 
lication not coming within any of the specifications of the code, 
and to act at once as the accuser, witness, judge and jury. To 

♦Keating. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 453 

do so calls for the most earnest and emphatic rebuke of the 
profession. ' ' 

The Supreme Court later held that "There are no punishable 
contempts of Court in Tennessee, except those specified in the 
statutes. ' ' 

So the case ended, bringing disrepute to injustice or tyranny, 
and popularity to the Avalanche. 

In 1870 Colonel Gallaway gave up his interest in the Ava- 
lanche, as before stated, and became editor of the Appeal. 

The Avalanche continued unsavory to the carpet-bag ele- 
ment and a few months after Colonel Gallaway left the paper 
an attempt was made to mob its office, but the effort was unavail- 
ing. . 

The Bulletin, which had had a varied experience during the 
war, and a new start after the war, with Raphael Semmes, editor, 
sold out in 1868 to J. M. Currie & Company, who continued to 
edit it for about a year, when it ceased to be, but had a successor, 
the Memphis Daily Sun, published by W. A. McCloy. This 
paper only lived about two years. 

In 1870 the Appeal became the property of the "Memphis 
Appeal Company," with Colonel Keating and Colonel 
Gallaway, eidtors. In 1875 both of these able editors became 
owners of the paper and it continued successful under their 
management for more than a decade. 

In 1887 Colonel Gallaway sold his interest in the Appeal to 
Messrs. W. A. Collier, M. B. Trezevant, A. D. Allen, Laurence 
Lamb and T. B. Hatchett, Colonel Keating still retaining his 
interest and becoming editor-in-chief. The managing-editor was 
Mr. G. C. Matthews, and the city-editor, F. Y. Anderson. In 
closing his history of the Appeal Mr. Vedder said, in 1888 : 

"For nearly half a century this journal has been within 
itself the history, not only of a city, but of the South, in all of the 
potent, social, political and economical factors that before and 
since the war have formed the internal motives of the South 's 
progress and its present prosperity. At the same time it has 
been the reflection and record of the thoughts and events of this 
period, it has itself been a power in moulding this thought, and 
controlling these events." 



454 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Through all the years of their existence and the turmoils 
of much of the period, the Appeal and the Avalanche remained 
Democratic, though other political differences arose between the 
two papers. It was one of these differences that caused Colonel 
Gallaway to dispose of his interest in the Avalanche in 1870 to 
Colonel A. J. Kellar, and become an editor of the Appeal. 

In 1876 Mr. R. A. Thompson became a partner with Colonel 
Kellar, and remained with the paper until 1878, when he for- 
feited his life in the awful epidemic of that year. In the latter 
part of 1878 Mr. F. S. Nichols became editor of the Avalanche 
and remained so through the epidemic of 1878 and 1879. 

In 1884, on the death of Mr. Nichols, the paper was pur- 
chased by Mr. James Phelan. Mr. H. M. Doak became the next 
editor and he was succeeded two years later by Mr. A. B. Pickett, 
who was then the youngest newspaper manager in Memphis. 
But Mr. Pickett's youth did not prevent his being an excellent 
manager and the paper grew and improved rapidly under his 
supervision. The paper was sold by Mr. Phelan in 1889 to Mr. 
W. A. Collier and others owning the Appeal, and consolidated 
with this paper. 

In 1865 an evening paper, the Public Ledger, was organized 
by Edwin and William Whitmore, with Colonel F. Y. Rockett, 
editor. Colonel Rockett was a successful editor for three years, 
making the Ledger the first successful evening paper maintained 
in Memphis. After that time he was succeeded by J. J. DuBose, 
who edited it for three years, when he retired and Colonel 
Rockett returned to the editorial chair. Mr. Edwin Whitmore, 
after the death of his brother, became full owner of the Ledger, 
and remained so until 1886. Captain J. Harvey Mathes was 
city-editor much of this time, he and ]\Ir. Whitmore working 
together harmoniously. Upon the death of Colonol Rockett, 
Captain Mathes became editor in 1872. The Ledger continued 
through many years of success while other evening papers came 
and went in periods of brief life. Captain Mathes, a man of 
learning and a soldier of high type made 'much of the success 
of this little paper. It was Democratic, but as Mr. Vedder says, 
"Very independent as well as liberal, fearless as well as bold, a 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 455 

leader in progressive development and the social and educational 
advancement of Tennessee." 

In 1878 Mr. Whitmore sold his interest to Captain Mathes 
and Mr. W. L. Trask, after which the paper was continued 
under the firm name of Mathes & Company, with Mr. C. G. 
Locke as business manager. After a trip to Europe Captain 
Mathes returned to Memphis in the midst of the yellow fever 
epidemic of 1878. He and his wife both had the disease, after 
having given themselves unselfishly to the assistance of others, 
but both recovered to continue their useful lives. 

Nearly a decade later, — 1887, — Mr. Trask sold his interest 
in the Ledger, and Captain Mathes organized a stock company, 
of which he was made president ; Henry F. Walsh, secretary 
and associate-editor; and R. J. Black, treasurer. Mr. A. B. 
Pickett became city-editor, which position he held until he trans- 
ferred to the Appeal. Then Mr. H. C. Ricketts was city-editor 
until he went to the Avalanche. 

The Ledger at that time had one of the best equipped news- 
paper establishments of the South. Its largest stockholder was 
Captain Mathes and he was assisted in the publication of the 
paper by a staff of talented men. On the death of Captain 
Mathes the paper was reorganized with Mr. John T. Harris as 
president and business-manager; Mr. M. W. Connoly, editor-in- 
chief, and Mr. D. A. Frayser, secretary and managing editor. 
The Ledger was discontinued in 1894, being at that time the 
oldest evening paper in the South. 

The Memphis Scimitar was established in 1880 by Attorney- 
general G. P. M. Turner, as a weekly. In 1882 it became a Mon- 
day morning paper and the following year an evening sheet, with 
a Monday morning issue. Miss Hattie A. Paul became its active 
business manager, she having contributed to its editorial columns 
from its beginning. She remained business manager until 1887, 
when the paper was sold. Then it came under the control of a 
stock-company with Sam Tate, Jr., president; Napoleon Hill, 
vice-president; S. L. Barinds, secretary; and W. D. Bethell, 
treasurer. N. Pickard was editor-in-chief, Reau E. Polk, city- 
editor and S. L. Barinds, commercial editor. 

In 1884 Walker Kennedy and 0. P. Bard, established a 



456 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

weekly society and literary paper called the Sunday Times, which 
was successful from the start. In 1885 Mr. Bard sold his inter- 
est to Mr. Charles L. Pullen, who became business manager. 
Mr. Kennedy, as chief editorial writer, used his learning, wit 
and polished style to good advantage, making the paper very 
popular, especially with cultured people. Every Sunday morn- 
ing families and individuals looked for the Sunday Times as 
many people looked for the Spectator early in the Eighteenth 
Century. This paper continued until Mr. Kennedy became 
chief editor of the Commercial Appeal. 

In 1890, when the Avalanche was sold to the Appeal, Mr. 
Pickett bought most of the stock in the Scimitar, and became 
owner and general manager of the "Daily Scimitar Publishing 
Company." Sam Tate was president of this Company and Ben 
H. Porter, secretary and cashier. Mr. Picket made great changes 
in the Scimitar and it became and has remained one of the best 
newspapers in the South. Two years after the new management 
the circulation had increased from 3,000 to 10,000, which has 
grown steadily ever since. 

In 1889, when the city was stirred up over the Hadden- 
Bethell campaign, the Scimitar was against Hadden, as were the 
Ledger, the Avalanche and the Appeal. All these dailies fight- 
ing the late president of the Taxing District, a paper was started 
in his interest by friends, called the Evening Democrat, with 
"Walker Kennedy as editor. 

In November of that same year a new morning paper was 
established, the Commercial, with Col. J. M. Keating as editor. 
The same company printed both the Democrat and Commercial, 
and was styled the "Commercial Publishing Company." The 
Demo>crat was short-lived but the Commercial continued. 

In 1890 Mr. Phelan became ill and sold his interest in the 
Avalanche to the Appeal. These two papers then became con- 
solidated as the Appeal- Avalanche, with W. A. Collier president 
of the new consolidated daily. 

In 1891 Colonel Keating resigned his editorship of the 
Commercial and his place was filled by E. W. Carmack, who 
retained the position until 1896, when he resigned to take up a 
political career. Mr. Carmack was sent to Congress from the 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 457 

Tenth District and later, represented his state in the United States 
Senate. 

In 1894 the Appeal-Avalan>che was sold to the Commercial, 
and the newly consolidated paper was called the Commercial- 
Appeal, which name it still retains. Mr. C. P. J. Mooney became 
managing editor of this paper, with Messrs. Walker Kennedy 
and W. M. Connelly editorial writers. This was the arrange- 
ment until 1902, when Mr. Mooney went to New York and P. 
Y. Anderson took his place. Later Mr. Anderson gave up the 
management and George McCormick succeeded him. In 1908 
Mr. Mooney returned and reassumed the management of his old 
paper. Mr. Kennedy w^as then chief editorial writer and 
remained so until 1910, when death claimed him in the midst 
of a successful career that promised to be a brilliant one. After 
his decease his editorial work was divided between Mrs. Walker 
Kennedy and Mr. Hugh Huhn, who now do about half of this 
writing, Mr. INIooney doing the other half. The Commercial- 
Appeal still continues, a progressive Democratic paper, one of 
the best in the country, and in a handsome new building at the 
comer of Court Avenue and Second Street^ one of the best 
equipped newspaper buildings of the time. Mr. W. J. Crawford 
has been president of the Commercial Publishing Company since 
its organization. 

May 5, 1902, a new morning paper was started, called the 
Memphis Morning News, with A. C. Floyd, editor. G. D. Raine 
bought the Neivs and it had very good success. 

The following year IMr. Pickett died, when his paper, the 
Scimitar, was taken charge by a board of trustees who controlled 
it until 1904, when Mr. Raine, owner of the News, bought the 
Scimitar also. The two papers were consolidated December 25, 
1904, under the name of the News-Scimitar, and has so continued 
to the present time. This is an afternoon paper with no Sunday 
edition, — an independent, Democratic paper. Its present staff 
comprises: G. D. Raine, editor-in-chief; jNI. W. Connolly, man- 
aging editor; T. W. Worcester, business manager; E. C. White, 
circulating manager ; and R. S. Eastman, city editor. The News- 
Scimitar has its home in a costly building at the corner of Madi- 



458 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

son Avenue and Third Street, not surpassed by any other news- 
paper building and press equipment in the state. 

In 1907 the Memphis Press, Avas started, a sprightly evening 
paper published daily except Sunday. This paper claims to be 
' ' Independent politically, financially, commercially. ' ' Its editor- 
in-chief is Mr. R. B. Young ; business manager, Mr. J. A. Keef e ; 
and city-editor, Mr. H. Leech. This evening sheet is the working- 
men's friend, and while it voices scathing sentiments sometimes, 
its aim is to be just and to befriend the down-trodden on all 
occasions. 

There have been many papers published in Memphis, — so 
many that it would take a volume to treat them all from the 
beginning. Even within the last generation the number has been 
legion. Mr. jNIooney says, "Within twenty years half a million 
dollars has been lost in jNIemphis newspaper ventures," but he 
adds, "within the last ten years most of the losses have been 
recovered. ' ' 

A number of German papers have been published, among 
them. The Memphis Journal, issued by Charles Weidt in 1876, 
which was well supported by the Germans until the 1878 epi- 
demic, when the publisher left the city. It continued to be pub- 
lished by C. Twanzig. Later it was united with the Southern 
Post Journal, and was edited by Otto and F. Zimmerman, becom- 
ing a popular paper. 

A German paper was established in 1854 by August Katt- 
man, entitled Die Stimme die Volks (The Voice of the People). 
On the death of Mr. Kattman in 1860, it suspended. Mr. Katt- 
man was a German protestant minister who came to the United 
States about 1850. His paper opposed slavery and expressed 
rational views. 

There have been numerous religious papers. One of these, 
the Baptist, originated in Nashville in 1834, and had a successful 
existence until the war, when it was suspended. After the war 
it was removed to Memphis and started a successful career under 
Graves, Jones & Company. 

A Catholic journal under the name of Adam was established 
in 1885, under the management of Reverend William Walsh. It 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 459 

was afterward controlled by the "Adam Publishing Company," 
with John S. Sullivan, president. 

In the early fifties the Memphis Daily Whig was published 
by S. P. Bankhead, J. M. Parker and A. H. Avery, with Colonel 
Bankhead as editor-in-chief and ]\Ir. Avery commercial and local 
editor. It lived three years and during that time was very 
popular with its party, having quite an influence in the com- 
munity. 

In 1856 a purely literary paper made its appearance, — the 
Memphis Diamond. The chief aim of this little paper was to 
improve taste and stimulate desire for education in the commun- 
ity, and its publishers, Messrs. C. B. Riggs and H. S. Millet, 
used their influence to good advantage. 

Under the firm name of Priddy, Hays & Brower, the Mem- 
phis Daily Argus was established in 1859, with W. P. McQuillan, 
editor. He was succeeded by Robert J. Yancey, formerly con- 
nected with the Enquirer, who, after a year's service gave place 
to Colonel John P. Pryor. A number of noted Memphis men 
were connected with this little paper at various times. 

Quite a deluge of papers came to Memphis right after the 
war, but most of them were short-lived. 

Colonel J. M. Keating founded the Daily Commercial in 
1865 and the next year it was consolidated with the Argus, but 
the united paper did not live long. 

A number of Republican papers were among these after-the- 
war publications but were not popular and so short-lived. 

The Masonic Jevjel, edited by A. J. Wheeler, a popular paper 
among the ]\Iasons and with other people too, died during the 
yellow fever epidemic and was not revived. 

In 1874 the Old Folks Society issued a monthly, which they 
called Old Folks Record, devoted to preserving early Memphis 
history. It was only published one year but during that time 
preserved many interesting facts for future generations. It has 
been largely quoted from in the present work. 

Several papers in the interest of farming have been started 
with varying success. Some of these, published for short inter- 
vals after the war were: The Southern Farmer, by Dr. M. "W. 
Phillips; the Practical Planter, by Messrs. Gift and Anderson; 



460 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the Southern Farm and Home, hy W. W. Browne; the Shelby 
County Journal, by Messrs. I. B. Wright and Marcus J. Wright; 
the Patron of Husbandry, by W. H. Worthington ; and the Mis- 
sissippi Valley Farmer, in 1887, by W. A. Battaile and Thomas 
Marshall. 

Some religious papers published in those early days were 
the Christian Advocate, edited about 1856, a weekly, by Reverend 
Samuel Watson. In 1871 its name was changed to the Western 
Methodist, R. W. Blew & Company, publishers. This paper had 
several changes, cessations and revivals and finally ceased in 
1885. In 1875 Dr. Watson started the Spiritual Magazine, which 
lived three years. Reverend F. A. Taylor edited the Presbyterian 
Sentinel in 1859-60. The Memphis Presbyterian was edited by 
Reverend A. Shotwell in 1872. In 1876 the Southern Catholic, 
published by Harrington & Powell, appeared. The Jewish 
Spectator was established in 1885 by Rev. Max Samfield, which 
has proved a successful paper to the present time. This paper 
was first managed by a stock company, but in 1886 it was pur- 
chased by Messrs. Samfield & Pickard. 

The first Memphis paper published for colored people was 
the Mississippi Baptist, established in 1872 by C. C. Dickinson. 
It was a semi-monthly for four years, when it became a weekly. 
In 1883 it changed hands and became the Memphis Watchman. 
Another paper devoted to the interests of this race, the Living 
Way, was started in 1874, with W. A. Brinkley, editor, and R. N. 
Countee, business manager. 

A number of society papers have been started in Memphis at 
intervals but they were usually of short duration. 

In 1886 The Council was a publication that enjoyed tem- 
porary popularity, edited by women, but contributed to by the 
pens of men and women both, chiefly local talent, and many 
superior articles, stories and poems appeared in its pages. The 
editors were Mesdames Olivia H. Grosvenor, IVIargaret IMinor, 
Jennie D. Lockwood and Misses Jennie M. Higbee and Louise 
Preston Looney; and those in charge of departments were Mrs. 
Lucy W. Bryan, literature ; Mrs. Elise Massey Selden, education ; 
Mrs. Samuel Watson, church work; Mrs. S. B. Anderson, phil- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 461 

anthropy; Mrs. Lide Meriwether, temperance and reform; Miss 
Mildred Spotswood Mathes, history. 

The Torch, also published in 1896, was another popular 
monthly. The business manager of this periodical was Mr. W. 
T. Watson, and the editors, Messrs. Anton Ankersmit and George 
Storm. The secretary and treasurer was Mr. S. S. Preston, Jr. ; 
the manager of the Advertising and Circulating department, Mr. 
Clyde W. Winn. This paper delved into the political questions 
of the day and, while a Southern paper, was an American one 
too, and its tone was optimistic. 

Papers published in Memphis at the present time, not already 
mentioned, are : Elkdom, a magazine published for the Elks, a 
very entertaining little periodical, often containing superior pro- 
ductions ; Good Tidings, a religious paper published on Oakland 
Avenue; the Memphis Magazine, dealing chiefly with local mat- 
ters ; the Medical Monthly, published in the Rogers Building ; 
the Bluff City News; the Catholic Journal of the New South; the 
Commercial Advocate; Deutsch Zeitung und Suedliches Post 
Journal; the Memphis Herald; the Progressive Farmer; the 
Southern Lumberman; the Sunday Plaindealer; the Early Bird; 
the Memphis Daily Record; The South Today, "published in the 
interests of the Memphis District, under contract with the Bureau 
of Publicity and Development of the Business Men's Club;" 
and the Cornerstone, an excellent educational paper published 
by the Teachers' Educational League." Besides these are a 
daily Hotel Reporter and Register and a Daily Abstranct Sheet, 
published in the Courthouse. 

There are two news associations, The Associated Press, with 
headquarters in the Scimitar Building, and the Western News- 
paper Union, 261 Court Avenue. These associations are inval- 
uable to the dailies for their assistance in obtaining news and 
obtaining it quickly. Cities do not wait half a month now, as 
they did a few decades ago, for foreign or any other sort of news, 
but through concerted action news comes to all the world from 
all the world every day. 



CHAPTER XX 



Literature 

^/ T WILL be impossible to embrace in a short historical 
tI sketch all the fugitive poems and magazine articles, 
^-^ many of them beautiful and some brilliant, which have 
graced the columns of the daily Memphis Press for more than 
half a century and in more recent years, the pages of magazines, 
opened so generously to ]\Iemphis writers and the historian 
must for the greater part be content to note the writers of books 
only. 

Beginning with didactic and professional works and his- 
torical writings Memphis took high rank in the first of a series 
of law books produced here since the Civil War. Mr. R. B. 
Hutchinson, a learned lawyer of her bar, wrote in 1877 "Hutch- 
inson on the Law of Carriers." This splendid treatise, pub- 
lished after his death in 1879, was from the first approved and 
adopted as a text book and hand-book of law in all of the 
United States. There were several other law books printed 
about that time, among them, "The Law of Telegraphs," by 
W. L. Scott, and the "Law of Self-Defense," by L. B. Horrigan 
and Seymour D. Thompson, "Heiskell's Digest," by Joseph B. 
Heiskell and "King's Digest" by H. C. King, and in 1896, 
"Telegraph and Telephone Companies," by S. Walter Jones, 
an excellent and accurate treatise. 

In polemics and controversial literature Memphis has been 
prolific of books. The first of these of note was "The Great 
Iron Wheel," by Reverend J. R. Graves, a learned divine, which 
was published in 1855. The same writer in 1861 published 
"Tri-Lemma;" "Bible Doctrine of Middle Life," 1873; the sev- 
eral subjects of his great debates with Ditzler at Carrolton, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 463 

published in 1876; "The Work of Christ in the Covenant of 
Redemption," L883, and "Parables and Prophecies of Christ," 
1887. 

The Reverend Samuel "Watson printed in the seventies 
"The American Spiritual Magazine" and in 1872 he published 
a work on Spiritualism called "The Clock Struck One," and 
this was followed in 1873 and 1874 by two other volumes 
entitled, "The Clock Struck Two" and "The Clock Struck 
Three." In 1874 he also published "A Memphian's Trip to 
Europe," and in 1884, "The Religion of Spiritualism." 

Among historical works of the period are "A Complete 
History of Memphis," 1873, by James D. Davis; "Old Times 
in West Tennessee," Joseph H. Williams; "A History of the 
City of Memphis," 1888, by J. M. Keating, a very comprehen- 
sive historical study of early Memphis, as well as contemporary 
history in its bearing on Memphis and her welfare. This book 
is a great mine of local historical data and reflects high credit 
on the illustrious editor who compiled it. 0. F. Vedder's vol- 
ume, published in connection with and as a part of Keating 's 
history, is a very valuable compilation of great interest to 
Memphians. 

In 1867 General Thomas Jordan, Chief-of-Staff to General 
Beauregard, and John P. Pryor, a noted Memphis editor, wrote 
a valuable military narrative entitled "The Campaigns of 
Lieutenant General Forrest and Forrest's Cavalry," with an 
introductory note by General Forrest, approving the narrative. 

Judge J. P. Young, in 1890, published a military history 
entitled "The Seventh Tennessee Cavalry." 

In biography Captain J. Harvey Mathes, 1897, published 
"The Old Guard in Gray," a series of sketches of Memphis 
Confederate Veterans, and later, 1902, contributed to the Great 
Commander Series, "The Life of General Forrest." 

Captain J. M. Hubbard published a little book containing 
narratives and sketches of the Seventh Tennessee Cavalry, 
entitled "Notes of a Private," 1911. 

In 1904 T. B. Edgington of the Memphis Bar, printed a 
treatise on the "Monroe Doctrine." 

In books of travel the late Judge John R. Flippin contrib- 



464 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

uted in 1889 a delightful series of "Sketches from the Moun- 
tains of Mexico," in which a vein of quiet humor embellishes 
the exquisite word painting of the observant traveler. 

But in Memphis, curiously enough, for it is yet but a youth- 
ful civilization, the principal tendency of intellectual endeavor 
has been to poetry. Turning recently the leaves of some 
volumes of the old time blanket newspapers of Memphis, the 
pages were found to be lavishly embellished, as was the cus- 
tom then, with numerous short poems, nearly all musical, and 
frequently of exquisite mould. Those inside pages of the fifties 
were the embryos of the modern magazine, a daily repository 
for aspiring bards and rhapsodists of their mental products, 
the difference mainly lying in the obvious superiority of much 
of the matter in the old newspaper columns over that custom- 
arily admitted to the modern magazines. 

Later the aspiring young Memphian turned to the novel, 
as offering a wider field of endeavor. But some have clung 
affectionately and successfully to their first love, and the occa- 
sional lyric poems have broadened into heroics and epics and 
the fugitive pieces with other more ambitious efforts, into 
volumes of poesy. 

Almost the first to grace the young city, ere it was a third 
of a century old, with the music of their lyric measures, were 
two sisters, Virginia born, who came to Memphis in 1843 to 
teach. Both were soon married to Tennesseeans and became 
known to the literary world as L. Virginia French and Lide 
Meriwether. The latter still survives in Memphis, a silver- 
haired matron, whose mind and fancy are as clear and bright 
as in youth. Mrs. French, who wrote her early poems under 
the widely known nom, L'Inconnue, was a voluminous writer 
and became widely known through her early poems: "The 
Legend of the Infernal Pass," "The Lost Soul," "The Misarere 
of the Pines," "Unwritten Music" and "Alone." 

In 1856 she published a collection of poems under the title, 
"Wind Whispers." Later she published a five-act tragedy, 
"Iztalilxo," and contributed voluminously of prose and poetry 
to the literature of that day. She also wrote a novel, "Darling- 
tonia," a book of force. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 465 

Mrs. Lide Meriwether likewise was not idle and in early- 
life contributed many beautiful poems to the press and maga- 
zines and in middle life published, in conjunction with her 
sister, L. Virginia French, a volume of poems entitled ''One or 
Two." Subsequently a little volume called "Soundings," a 
repertoire of pathetic experiences gathered by her in her work 
among unfortunate women. Her subsequent writings have 
been devoted largely to her life work in promoting temperance, 
in ameliorating the condition of woman and in elevating her 
status in the economic and political world. 

In 1859 a little volume was published in Memphis by Wil- 
liam Atson, entitled "Heart Whispers," probably the earliest 
effort of the Memphis book press. There were also three other 
writers at a somewhat later day who entertained Memphians 
with grateful verse, — Mrs. Mary E. Pope, who published a 
book of "Poems," in 1872 ; Mrs. Annie Chambers Ketchum, who 
brought out "Benny," New York, 1870 and "Lotus Flowers," 
New York, 1877; and Mrs. Martha Frazer (Brown) whose 
poems were signed "Estelle." 

Miss Clara Conway published in 1876 a novel entitled 
"Life's Promise to Pay," and Miss Lulla Vance at a later date, 
"Lois Carroll." 

Mrs. Elizabeth Avery Meriwether published in 1880 a very 
striking sketch of reconstruction days entitled, "The Master 
of Red Leaf." Her other books were "Black and White," 
"The Ku Klux Klan" and "My First and Last Love." In 
1904 A. R. Taylor & Co., Memphis, brought out for her "Facts 
and Falsehoods Concerning the War on the South." In 1883 
Mrs. E. Collins printed a book, "Poems." 

Among the writers during the tenth decade of the last 
Century, whose work attracted attention were Howard Haw- 
thorne McGhee, writer of poems and short stories ; M. W. Con- 
nolly, who printed for private distribution in 1890, "Poems, 
Wise and Otherwise ; ' ' Will Hubbard Keman, the wierd com- 
poser of Poe-like measures who, in 1892, gave one book of 
poems of high merit, queerly entitled "The Flaming Meteor;" 
and Mrs. Minnie Walter Myers, who published in 1898 
"Romance and Realism of the Southern Gulf Coast." 



466 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

In 1894 a story appeared by Sister Hughetta, called "Dear 
Little Marchionness ; " and this was followed in 1895 by a 
Norse Idyl by Adolyn Gale Home. The year 1896 brought forth 
two books, "A Strange Friendship" by Frances K. Wolf, and 
" Ten-Nas-Se, " by John Clay Johnson. The next year appeared 
"The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth," by F. L. 
Bates. In 1909 Gilbert D. Raine published "Life;" and in 
1910, William S. Bond brought out "His Struggle Magnifi- 
cent." 

Louise Preston Looney published "Tennessee Sketches" 
in 1901. Dr. William M. Guthrie published "Modern Poetical 
Prophets" in 1-897 and "Songs of American Destiny," in 1900. 
Augusta Kortrecht, a Memphis writer now living in New York, 
has written an interesting Southern novel, "A Dixie Rose," 
and recently she has followed it with "A Dixie Rose in Bloom." 

Among the best known Memphis writers not yet mentioned 
and whose works require no introduction to the reading public, 
are Mrs. Virginia Frazer Boyle, Judge Walter Malone, Mrs. 
Sara Beaumont Kennedy and Mrs. Annah Robinson Watson. 
Virginia Frazer Boyle is both poet and novelist. She has 
written widely for newspapers and magazines, beginning quite 
early in life. Her first book appeared in 1893, entitled "The 
Other Side." This was a study of the Civil War and its 
causes. In 1897 followed "Brokenburne" and in 1900, a series 
of folk-lore stories called "Devil Tales." "Serena," a novel 
depicting Southern life, appeared in 1905 and her latest work, 
a volume of poems entitled "Love Songs and Bugle Calls," 
was published in 1906. 

Mrs. Boyle has contributed much to magazine literature, 
writing at intervals for Harper's Magazine and Weekly, the 
Century and the Delineator. She also wrote the Centennial 
Ode for Tennessee in 1896, which was awarded the prize. In 
1909 Mrs. Boyle was selected by the Philadelphia Brigade 
Association, a patriotic military organization, to write the 
centenary Ode to Abraham Lincoln, which was received with 
marked approval, and in 1910 she was elected Poet Laureate 
of the United Confederate Veterans. A loyal Southern woman, 
yet her range of writing makes her a daughter of the North 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 467 

too, so, as a Northern paper stated, she belongs to her whole 
country. 

Walter Malone has confined his literary achievements 
almost exclusively to poetry. At the early age of sixteen he 
published a book of poems entitled ''Claribel and Other 
Poems." This was published in 1882 and in 1885 another volume 
of his appeared, "The Outcast and Other Poems." "Narcissus 
and other Poems was issued in 1892, "Songs of Dusk and 
Dawn" in 1894 and "Songs of December and June" in 1896. 

In 1897 Judge Malone published "The Coming of the 
King," (short stories) ; in 1900, "Songs of North and South," 
and in 1904 there appeared a volume entitled "Poems," which 
included, besides his latest work, much that had appeared in 
his four preceding volumes. This book attracted wide atten- 
tion not only in America, but in England and Scotland as well. 
Judge Malone is now engaged in writing an epic entitled 
"De Soto," which will give the coloring of lofty poesy to the 
march of that great Spanish soldier and adventurer across the 
Amercan continent, 1539-1541, and his discovery of the Mis- 
sissippi River at the site of Memphis. 

Walker Kennedy, a noted and able local journalist, and his 
wife, Sara Beaumont Kennedy, gave to Memphis several novels 
which attracted much attention. The first of this series was 
by Mr. Kennedy in 1893, and entitled "In the Dwellings of 
Silence." In 1898 Mr. Kennedy published "Javan ben Seir" 
and in 1899 he wrote and published "The Secret of the Wet 
Woods." Mrs, Kennedy, who had written quite extensively 
for leading magazines, her stories appearing in Harper's, 
McClure's, Everybody's, Outing and Ladies Home Journal, 
and a number of poems, largely patriotic lyrics of the Revo- 
lution, published her first book in 1901, "Jocelyn Cheshire." 
In 1902 she also published "The Wooing of Judith." Several 
years later, 1908, another volume appeared, "Told in a Little 
Boy's Pocket," and her last work, "Cicely," appeared in 
1911. Mrs. Kennedy continues to print in the Commercial 
Appeal, the journal of which her late husband was editor, little 
gems of poems. 

Another well known writer of Memphis, Mrs. Annah Rob- 



468 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

inson Watson, has published several works. The first of the 
series was "Some Notable Families," 1898. Then came "Passion 
Flowers," in 1901; "A Royal Lineage," 1901; "On the Field 
of Honor," 1902, a series of sketches from real life of Juvenile 
Confederate soldiers, and their boyish adventures. A later and 
more pretentious work, "Of Sceptered Race," appeared in 
1909. It was of unusual order and at once attracted much 
attention. Mrs. Watson's latest book, "Victory," is a poem. 



-/v CHAPTER XXI 



Art, Music and the Drama 

^^r HE majority of people who make up a new town are of 
ill the rugged type whose chief considerations are how 
^■^ to obtain the practical necessities of life. First utility, 
then comfort and then embellishments is the general order of 
development in a settlement, though the love of beauty is never 
wholly dead in the roughest human breast. The eye is uncon- 
sciously attracted by color and form, the ear by sound and the 
feeling by reproduction of life in story or acting. 

So in the homes of early Memphis, — except those of the 
cultured few, — could be seen rude prints or gaily colored pic- 
tures, and spare change was spent for china dogs, vases or 
other gay ornaments that could occasionally be bought from 
peddlers, or when some member of the family made a visit to a 
distant city. 

Music had its expression in the banjo and violin, or 
"fiddle," as it was known. The style of music was in keep- 
ing with the gay prints and china ornaments, and rollicking, 
jerky tunes could be heard from the above two instruments. 
Some of the favorite pieces of 1826, given in "Old Folks 
Papers," were "Old Zip Coon," "Row, Boatman, Row," and 
"Arkansas Traveler." The last of these was popular for 
dances, these consisting of jigs and reels. 

When military companies began to be formed the drum 
and fife were introduced. Patriotic airs then became popular, 
the favorite of these being "Yankee Doodle." "Jay Bird 
Dies with the Whooping Cough," was another popular air of 
that time. None of these songs can be called elevating, but 
they gave expression to the desire for harmony and this desire 



470 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

was sometimes better satisfied in love songs, the sentiment of 
these and music ahvays gravitating toward one another. 

The drama was the first of the arts to receive serious atten- 
tion in Memphis, and as early as 1829 a theatrical society was 
organized, called the Thespian Society. This society brought 
some really good actors to JMemphis, among them Sol Smith, 
who was induced to stay in the town as an amateur director 
and in 1830 he reorganized the Thespian Society into the 
Garrick (Tub, Later, as JNIr. Smith's talent became more 
marked he left Memphis for broader fields, but he had laid 
the foundation of the drama here. 

The first building used for theatrical performances was 
on the northwest corner of Jackson and Chickasaw Streets,* 
and here some very good performances were had from ama- 
teurs who had grown from the Garrick Club, and from occa- 
sional professionals who came to the "far West." Some of 
these notables were among tlie first actors of the time. 

In 1838 a more commodious theatre was fitted up on the 
south side of Market Street, between Front Row and Front 
Alley. An old frame building was converted into this theatre 
and a stage erected with some tolerably good scenery and a 
drop curtain to use between scene changes, this part of the 
performance heretofore having been conductedi before the 
audience. 

In 1841 a large stable on Main Street, near Adams, was 
converted into a "very genteel looking theatre,"! by John 
S. Potter, where new and good scenery was introduced and 
some very good plays performed. This theatre grew in popu- 
larity and by 1845 we are told that Shakespearian plays were 
produced there by good talent and to appreciative, large 
audiences. Some of the actors brought to this stable-theatre 
in the forties were the elder Booth, Eliza Logan, Julia Dean, the 
famous llackett, Charlotte Cushman, Charlotte Crampton, 
Chanfrau, Neafie and on this crude stage the afterward world- 
celebrated Adah Isaacs Menken began her career as a child. $ 

♦Chickasaw Street was North Front Row, now Front Street. 

tOld Folks Magazine. 

JFloyd. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 471 

Here was presented ''Pizarro," and "The Fall of the Alamo, 
or the Death of Crockett," a play which was immensely popu- 
lar on account of the historic interest then still fresh in the 
minds of the people. 

This building was later burned and in 1849 Thomas Len- 
nox, familiarly known as "Old Tom," converted the church 
building on the corner of Washington Street and Center Alley 
into a very good theatre, where only first class productions were 
presented. After Mr. Lennox had conducted his theatre for 
a while Charles & Ash became managers and they brought 
some of the first stars of the time to Memphis boards. Among 
these were the elder Booth and his famous son, Edwin Booth, 
Eliza Logan, TIackett, known as the great PalstafT, Charlotte 
Cushman and others. 

In 1859 this playhouse discontinued use as a regular 
theatre and subsequently lost its high caste and was changed 
into a varieties theatre. 

During the existence of the Washington Street theatre a 
building was erected for the express purpose of a theatre by 
James Wickersham. This was called the New Memphis Theatre 
and was opened October 19, 1859, by W. 11. Crisp, who con- 
tinued the management for several years. Its plays were pro- 
duced by a stock company. 

By this time many cultured people had come to or had 
grown up in Memphis, and the need was felt for high-class 
entertainment. Occasional musicians were brought and grand 
opera was enjoyed at intervals. 

March 14, 1851, the great "Sweedish Nightingale," Jenny 
Lind, gave a concert in Memphis and people from all the sur- 
rounding country flocked to hear her wonderful voice. News- 
papers descanted on her vocal and ventriloqual powers, and 
those who heard her could think of little else for days after 
but her wonderful voice and singing. 

In April, 1851, "Master" Thomas, a violinist of note, gave 
a concert here and was later persuaded to take up his residence 
in Memphis and teach music. lie taught successfully for a 
while but patronage was not large enough to give him con- 
tinued and broadening success, so he went to wider fields. 



472 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

On April 22 of this year, Parodi gave a concert and was 
almost as enthusiastically received as Jenny Lind had been. 
Colonel Keating says that "The cultivated musical people were 
especially enthusiastic over her." 

"While music and the drama made headway and the atten- 
dance at good concerts and plays was usually good and often 
crowded, painting and sculpture made little advancement 
among the people before the War Between the States. The 
only monument erected in Memphis worthy of note was Frazee's 
bust of Andrew Jackson in Court Square, and that appealed to 
the majority of people largely because it represented Jackson, 
and not because of its artistic value. Drawing and painting 
were taught in some of the schools but the outcome of that 
was small and much of the artistic talent of young girls in 
those days was directed in the monotonous, almost senseless 
lifelessness of wax and hair flowers and other inartistic time 
consumers, which were preserved under glass cases. If the 
time spent on these had been given to really reproducing nature, 
no matter how crudely, in drawing, which always speaks so 
keenly to young minds, or in color, or reproducing form in 
hand-adaptable clay, the result would have been far more 
elevating to the growing youth of the city. No record is found 
of a Memphis boy or girl developing into a real artist in the 
early days. 

During the War Between the States even music and drama 
received little attention in the distressed South, though musi- 
cians and actors continued to flourish in the North. In 1864 
Maginley & Solomon built a theatre on the southwest corner 
of Jefferson and Fourth Streets, naming it the Olympic Theatre. 
It was opened by Kate Warwick Vance in "Mazeppa" and 
pronounced a sort of success, but its managers could not make 
expenses, so the theatre closed ingloriously. After the war 
this theatre was reopened by a circus company that had toler- 
ably success for a while. 

After the war was over places of amusement were reopened 
and by the end of 1865 all were well attended. Laura Keene 
appeared for a successful week and she was followed in 
December by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean. After the Keans 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 473 

came Edwin Adams in "Hamlet," and played to appreciative 
audiences. 

The Greenlaw Opera House, finished toward the last of 
the decade, supported some good attractions, among them 
Ghioni-Susini Italian Opera Troupe, which gave their perform- 
ances for a week to good audiences. Each season following 
gave good attractions, though Memphis still did not give large 
support to the theatres. 

In 1867 Lawrence Barrett was here, and in opera, Patti- 
Strakosch Italian Opera Company. The next year Lawrence 
Barrett and Laura Keene were here together, each having 
become a favorite of Memphis audiences before this partner- 
ship. 

Home music was growing and numerous amateur con- 
certs were creditably given for charities and churches. 

The end of this decade also gave Memphis people such 
actors as Edwin Booth, Frank Mayo, Mary McVicker, Edwin 
Forrest, Joe Jefferson, Isabell McCullough's Opera Troope 
and the Frederica Opera Troupe, popular in that day. Leo 
Wheat, a famous pianist, also gave a concert. 

During the seventies the drama and music increased in 
favor and other forms of amusement came. There were musi- 
cal entertainments and educational as well as entertaining 
lectures given at the theatres and churches; spiritual mediums 
and other mystery-loving performers gave seances, and Mardi 
Gras became a popular annual festival. 

Among the lecturers were George Francis Train at the 
Greenlaw Opera House; a blind preacher, Mr. Milburne, who 
also lectured there to large audiences ; Father Burke, who gave 
a series of popular lectures at St. Peter's church and was feted 
by all classes of people; Lilian Edgarton, who lectured on 
''From Fig Leaves to Dolly Varden;" Olive Logan, at that 
time a noted actress and journalist; John G. Saxe, the poet; 
and Horace Greeley, whose lecture was well attended and he 
himself was hospitably received by Memphis people. The Con- 
federate soldiers sent a committee to greet him at the Overton 
Hotel, corner of Poplar and Main Streets. 

Of the actors some of the most celebrated came to the 



474 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Bluff City at that time, among them being Lydia Thompson, 
a famous burlesque actress of her day ; Janauscheck, another 
actress who had gained fame ; and the talented Sothern. 

Blind Tom, a negro genius who could imitate with his 
voice every sound he heard and who could play the most diffi- 
cult compositions on the piano after having heard them once, 
even imitating the time and expression, gave several concerts, 
which always brought crowded houses. 

The Thomas Orchestra came to the Greenlaw Opera House; 
Patti and Mario gave very successful concerts there ; Ole Bull 
charmed hundreds with his violin, and the great pianist Rub- 
enstein, came. 

After the epidemic of 1873 the theatre was reopened with 
the play "Watch and Wait, or Through Fire." 

In 1874 Ben DeBar was Falstaff at the theatre ; the 
extremely popular "Lotta" was here; T. C. King, a noted 
tragedian of the time, presented Hamlet; Lawrence Barrett 
charmed old and new audiences; George D. Chaplin gave 
Monte Christo ; McWade gave Rip Van Winkle ; Marion Mor- 
daunt gave Oliver Twist ; and there were many others of less 
note. 

On March 13, 1-874, a benefit was given for the monument 
to be erected to Mattie Stevenson, a beautiful young woman 
who had come to Memphis to nurse the yellow fever victims 
and after nursing many patients through the disease took it 
herself and died. This heroic deed appealed to Memphis people 
and at a later date the monument was erected. It is today a 
conspicuous tribute near the North gate of Elmwood Ceme- 
tery. 

Professor Perring trained amateurs for the "Messiah," 
which was rendered with great credit to himself and the 
singers. Another amateur performance was "Jarley's Wax 
Works," given for charity. 

Mr. Tom Davey that year assumed charge of the theatre 
and it thrived under his management. 

Mardi Gras, celebrated according to the old French cus- 
tom on Shrove Tuesday, grew to be quite as much a part of 
Memphis as of New Orleans, where it has been celebrated for 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 475 

many years. Besides the masking and ball-room festivities 
that were not always conducive to the best behavior, there 
were day and night pageants that were usually educative and 
the floats of these spectacular processions were works that 
required art and skill in the construction. In 1875 the floats 
were the most pretentious Memphis had yet attempted. The 
subject of the night parade was ''Ferdinand and Isabel," 
and as may be surmised, told the story of these two monarehs 
and Columbus in costly, artistic scenes on wheels. General 
Colton Green, a man of learning and artistic skill was the 
designer of this beautiful display. 

After the yellow fever epidemics people were too sad 
over their recent bereavements and the general city depres- 
sion to have the gay Mardi Gras, but in the late fall of 1879 
the theatre was opened and Mary Anderson, then under the 
rising star of her fame, played to a Memphis audience. 

In 1880 the Memphis Theatre was purchased by the 
Lubrie Brothers, who fitted the play-house up and named it 
Lubrie's Theatre. They conducted it five years and sold out. 
Upon this change the theatre had its original name restored 
and again flourished as the New Memphis Theatre. Many 
were the stars and lesser actors that played on its boards ; 
many operas were there rendered and numerous lectures 
entertained and edified Memphis people as the theatre was 
conducted by different managers. Mr. Vedder gives its suc- 
cessive managers from the Lubries to 1888 as Messrs. W. C. 
Thompson, C. D. Steinkuhl, Spalding, Bid well & McDonough, 
C. A. Leffingwell, T. W. Davey, Davey & Brooks, Joseph 
Brooks and Frank Gray. 

The Greenlaw Opera House was burned in 1884. This 
theatre had been very popular in its day and was missed by 
the theatre-going people. 

During the eighties the Higbee school gave its girls a 
high standard of music and art by employing teachers from 
advanced schools. Other schools were also giving attention 
to this part of education and art was receiving more general 
recognition in the city. 

The first teacher of note of whom we find record was 



476 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Mrs. Morgan, who first taught in the Memphis Female Insti- 
tute on the site where now stands the Christian Brothers Col- 
lege. Mrs. Morgan did some good work herself and imported 
knowledge successfully. In the sixties this artist did a book 
in water-colors of flowers collected around Memphis, which 
was considered valuable, both from an artistic and a useful 
point of view. This interesting book was lost in a fire in the 
seventies. 

The pupils of Mrs. Morgan progressed notably and one 
of them showed genius which was brought out and afterward 
ripened into world-wide reputation. This pupil was Miss 
Mary Solari. The talented girl studied with Mrs. Morgan 
until 1882, when she went to Florence, Italy and studied ten 
years. After working a year in Casioli's studio he thought 
her work ought to be exhibited in the Academia di Belle Arte, 
but owing to the fact that she was a woman her work could 
not be entered. However, as pictures were entered anono- 
mously Casioli exhibited some of her work. One of these pic- 
tures in black and white was a decorative piece that showed 
such strength that it took a first prize and another — heads of 
different types of peasants, took a prize also. When it was 
learned that the artist was a woman some of the Board of 
Awards did not want the decision to stand but others said it 
would be a disgrace for it not to stand and would cast a reflec- 
tion on the Academy. The press took up the subject and it 
ended by the young girl receiving her fairly-earned prizes and 
honor and opened the door of the Academy to women. Colonel 
Keating says of this achievement of Miss Solari 's, that she 
"surpassed Savonorola in this, that she conquered the preju- 
dices of Florence and commanded that the gates of the Acad- 
emy of Art be opened and remain open to women forever. 

Cavallucci, president of the Academy, expressed fear that 
this entrance of women would distract the attention of men 
artists and bring about a deterioration of art but the opposite 
effect was experienced and it was found that men and women 
stimulated one another to their best. So the Academy remained 
co-educational, made so by a young Memphis woman through 
the real merit of her work. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 477 

Miss Solari returned to Memphis in 1892 and in 1893 she 
was appointed one of the Board of Judges of the Fine Arts 
Department of the Chicago "World's Fair. She was the only- 
woman on this jury and the only representative from the 
Southern States. She displayed such good judgment in the 
work performed by this board that she was designated the 
"business woman," an unusual title for an artist. Mrs. Potter 
Palmer invited Miss Solari to exhibit some of her pictures at the 
Woman's Building at this Fair, which she did. 

In 1896 Miss Solari had several pictures and an antique 
collection at the Cotton States and International Exposition 
at Atlanta, Georgia. Here her collection of antique tapestries 
and curios took a gold medal. She also received a silver medal 
for water-color, a diploma of honor, diploma of honorable men- 
tion and a bronze medal for other work. 

At the Tennessee Centennial in 1897 she took the first prize 
for oil painting, second for water-color, first for crayon, first 
for landscape and first for antique collection. At this exposi- 
tion Miss Solari had charge of the art exhibit in the Memphis 
building and some of her pictures hung there as well as in the 
"Parthenon," the general art building. One picture in the 
latter building, "The Cloister of St. Marc" was commented 
on by the Nashville American, which article asserted that this 
picture "cannot be surpassed." Another of her pictures exhib- 
ited there was "Hopefield Under Water, 1897." 

In 1894 this gifted and energetic artist opened a school of 
Fine Arts in the Randolph Building in Memphis. A partner 
in this school was M. Paradise, the French juror on the world's 
fair board. He taught sculpture ; Miss Freeman, wood-carving 
and Mrs. Fry, china-painting. Miss Solari taught oil, water- 
color, pastel and tapestry painting. 

In 1898, at a concourse of the whole Academy in Florence, 
one of Miss Solari 's decorative compositions took the one 
hundred pound prize. 

]\Iiss Solari considers her best picture a life sized Magda- 
lene, painted from life in Florence. This is an oil and has 
attracted much notice. Rabbi Samfield of Memphis, lectured 
on this wonderful production and Mr. G. C. Matthews, of 



478 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the Memphis Appeal wrote an editorial on it. Another of her 
pictures that has received much favorable comment is an oil 
of an old man and woman begging, also from life, named 
"Two Mendicants." 

Before Miss Solari opened her art school Mr. and Mrs. 
Longman, two gifted artists, had a studio here, where some 
excellent pictures were produced and where pupils received 
careful and intelligent instruction. Mrs. Longman was a Mem- 
phis resident for many years. She was the daughter of Adju- 
tant General Lambert May, a Frenchman and a Confederate 
soldier. 

On December second and third, 1892, the Longman studio 
was open to visitors and there were many creditable pictures 
displayed. Some of these were works of the students, some the 
work of Mr. and Mrs. Longman and a number had been loaned 
by artists or owners for the exhibit. 

In this same year Miss Ashe had an art school and both 
her own work and that of her pupils received high commenda- 
tion. 

In 1895 the Nineteenth Century Club gave a water color 
exhibit, where some excellent pictures were shown. Among 
them were two of James Henry Mosler's scenes; a gorgeous 
sunset by J. C. Nicholl, "well handled," the Commercial Appeal 
asserted; "A Judean Mill Stream," by W. H. Gibson; Theo- 
dore Robinson's "Salvation Girl," which was called "one of 
the gems of the collection;" and some good studies in life. A 
visiting artist to this exhibit made the remark, "There is not 
a weak picture in the collection." 

An Art League was inaugurated and chartered about 
1900. The object of this League was to promote painting, 
sculpture, etching, designing, etc., and to hold exhibitions at 
intervals. 

Of course art was taught in many of the schools and the 
standard was continually raised. 

An artist of note who spent much of his life in Memphis 
and never lost interest and love for his home city, was Carl 
Gutherz, who was born in Switzerland. In 1851 his father, 
a cultured man, left Switzerland and located in Ohio, where 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 479 

he founded Tell City. There he lost all he had in establishing 
works for terra cotta, after which he moved to Memphis. He 
was an artistic man and an excellent draughtsman. Carl gave 
indications of talent at an early age and at sixteen was placed 
in a school of mechanical drawing. When the warship "Ala- 
bama" was built Carl Gutherz designed all the machinery. 
But he was an artist of higher light and while the mechanical 
training benefitted him it did not prevent his soaring nor 
keep him from giving expression to his dream world. In later 
years he said that his first inspiration to become a real artist 
came while viewing the magnificent sunsets from the Memphis 
bluffs. 

When a young man it became possible for him to go to 
Paris to study, where he entered the Ecole de Beaux Arts. He 
studied with Pils, Jules Lefebre and Boulanger. He dreamed 
and did good work in Paris in the atmosphere of art. He 
was working on a copy of the "Lost Illusions" of Glyre, in 
the Luxembourg, when the war between France and Prussia 
broke out. He left France and went to Munich. In that city 
a vision came to him which proved to be that of his first great 
picture, — the "Awakening of Spring," but he did not paint 
it until he went to Rome, — walking most of the way there 
because he did not have the money to ride. In Rome he 
studied in the Villa de Medici. His "Awakening of Spring" 
was painted and was well received. This picture was after- 
ward bought by an American and now hangs in a private 
gallery in Boston. 

In 1880 Mr. Gutherz married an Alabama lady and 
returned to Paris. They remained there until 1896, during 
which time the artist produced numerous pictures and became 
one of a circle of the gay city's best artists. All the salons 
were open to his pictures and he received several medals. He 
also received the magic parchment certificate, entitling him 
to be forever liars concours in the Salon. Some of his great- 
est pictures are "Lux Incarnationis ; " "The Evening of the 
Sixth Day," one of the great mystical paintings of the time; 
"Ad Astra," which he didicated to the French astronomer 
Flammarion; "The Temptation of St. Anthony;" "Ad Angel- 



480 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

is," representing an earthly figure being carried by two 
angels to heaven; "Midsummer Night's Dream;" "Ecce 
Homo;" "Sappho;" and the "Golden Legend." 

To go back : after the War Between the States Mr. Gutherz 
made his home in Memphis and having been in sympathy with 
the Confederacy and fought for it, after its sad fate he loved 
it still and his first great painting after the conflict, "The 
Flight of the Warrior's Soul," embodied his feeling. This 
picture was reproduced on cards and thousands of these 
copies were sold in the Southern States. "Sunset After 
Appomattox," is another picture in which his sentiment for 
the "Lost Cause" is given expression. In this picture, which 
hangs in the Tennessee Club of this city, General Lee sits on 
a fallen oak, — a fallen oak himself but, like an oak of sound 
wood, still destined for usefulness. It is all over — he has per- 
formed what seemed to him to have been his duty, and 
although surrender was inevitable, his head is not bowed. 
His army was a respectable one; there had been no pillage, no 
barbarous cruelty, no unnecessary taking or destruction of pro- 
visions. Civilized warfare was ever his method. In this picture 
the great warrior sits deep in thought, his old war-horse Traveler 
standing behind, perhaps expecting the usual call to action 
and wondering at the deep, unusual silence in the evening 
glow. General Lee looks ahead, into the future, not knowing 
how it will be with his loved land and his people, but he has 
the optimism of a true Christian and philosopher and knows 
that right will finally triumph and so he looks ahead and not 
down. 

In 1896 Mr. Gutherz and his family moved to Washington, 
where they continued to reside until the artist's death. In 
the Congressional Library are mural paintings of his that have 
attracted world-wide attention. In the reading-room of the 
House of Representatives, greatest of its beautiful decorations 
are seven panels in the ceiling by Carl Gutherz representing 
"The Spectrum of Light." Each of these panels has a figure in 
a rainbow color, representing a special achievement, all combining 
the seven colors of the spectrum. His decorations are also to be 
seen in other public buildings, all characteristic in their color- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 481 

ing and the mystical charm of Mr. Gutherz's rare touch and feel- 
ing. 

But all of his pictures are not mystical ; some are very real 
and very life-like. Portraits from his brush hang in art gal- 
leries and elegant homes, "speaking likenesses" indeed. He 
said of his own taste that portraiture and ideal creation both 
had "a subtle fascination" for him. 

Several years ago when Mr. Gutherz was in Memphis, 
Mrs. E. A. Neely telephoned him that she wished to lay before 
him a project she had for establishing an art gallery in Mem- 
phis. He was to leave the city that night and told Mrs. Neely 
that he could give her one hour. She thanked him for that 
and he went immediately to her home. Mrs. Neely, after wel- 
coming him, launched straightway into her subject. She told 
him how, one day while sketching in Overton Park, a strong 
impulse had come to her that Memphis must have an art gal- 
lery ; how she had since dwelt upon it, talked about it and tried 
to scheme to devise ways and means for it. Either the plan 
itself or her intelligent manner of explaining it appealed to the 
artist who had come to her for a limited time, for he lost his 
hurried manner, became interested and his one hour grew to 
two and a half hours. He returned to the hotel full of the 
scheme and remained in Memphis that night. Indeed most of 
the night was spent drafting a plan for the proposed Art 
Museum and before morning he had drawn a ground plan which 
he later submitted to Mrs. Neely. Subsequently he drew 
another and improved plan in which he provided for a series 
of buildings to be joined by pergolas which, as the Museum 
should grow, could be walled up into more housing space for 
the pictures, statues or curios. These two persons, with their 
desire to have a lasting good for the people, grew enthusiastic 
and aroused some interest but where were funds for even the 
first of such a pretentious scheme to come from? Mr. Gutherz 
had to leave and the project lagged but never was given up 
by Mrs. Neely. Often while engaged in domestic duties for 
her large family or otherwise employed, this enterprising 
woman was wondering how to go about getting money for the 
museum. Very trifling things sometimes serve as promoters 



482 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

of big thoughts and one day when Mrs. Neely was in her front 
yard she stooped to pick up a scrap of paper that had been 
thrown down by a school boy and marred the neatness of the 
surroundings. At once she thought of the carelessness of chil- 
dren in scattering trash about instead of being taught to have 
civic pride and to practice orderliness. This particular scrap 
was a page foom a drawing book on which a crude school-boy 
drawing appeared. The drawing brought to the lady's mind 
her pet scheme. "In some cities," she reflected, "waste paper 
is collected and brings money ; why can we not gather it and 
make money for a nucleus for the museum?" That same day 
Mrs. Neely talked with Miss Ashe and Miss Cain of the school 
near her home and a plan of collecting waste paper was really 
formulated. The Park Museum Association was then and 
there formed with Mrs. Neely president and Miss Cain secre- 
tary. These ladies have not been idle and now they actually 
see an open way for collecting, baling and selling thousands 
of dollars worth of waste materials of the city, from schools, 
homes, factories, stores, laundries, etc. Already many Memphis 
men and women are interested in this scheme of furthering 
art culture in Memphis. 

Mrs. Bessie Vance Brooks' $100,000 proposed memorial 
building to her husband, S. H. Brooks, mentioned in a previ- 
ous chapter, now seems to be an assured fact and this will be 
a great beginning for the plan of the great artist who has 
physically passed to the Great Beyond. This splendid bequest 
and the scheme for a continuing art fund, are expected to 
secure for Memphis the great Museum of which JNIr. Gutherz 
dreamed, to adorn and elevate our already lovely Overton 
Park. His plan was to have a park-museum where all arts 
shall be gathered together. "The sciences and muses all 
should and will come to favorable environment," he said, and 
"a cluster of associate arts and sciences will be attracted 
towards one another and it will be but reasonable that finally 
the Park Museum v/ill represent a great nucleus and center of 
aesthetic interests." 

Yet another great artist received early training in the 
Bluff City and went to distant countries and to fame. This 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 483 

was Katharine Augusta Carl, born in the South and a long- 
time resident and teacher of Memphis, When a young girl 
Miss Carl went to Paris to study, her first teacher there being 
Bouguerean and later she studied and worked abroad eighteen 
period of her life she studied and worked abroad eighteen 
years. 

In 1903 Miss Carl and her mother went to China to visit 
her brother and while there she was invited to paint the por- 
trait of Si Ann, the Empress Dowager of China. She accepted 
the commission and took up residence in the imperial palace, 
a distinction not before enjoyed by any foreigner since the 
Twelfth Century, when Marco Polo was a resident guest there. 
She remained the guest of Court for eleven months during 
which time she painted four portraits of her majesty. Special 
apartments were set aside for the artist in both the summer 
and winter palaces. Of the four portraits painted the largest 
was sent to the St. Louis Exposition, where it was unveiled 
during the visit of Prince Pu Lun to the Fair. This portrait 
was set in a handsomely carved frame that cost $40,000. The 
picture received much comment during the Exposition and 
was later presented to the United States. It now hangs in 
the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. The idea of painting 
this portrait originated with Mrs. Conger, wife of the American 
Minister to China, who desired a correct picture of her majes- 
ty presented to America, where she had been so grossly mis- 
represented. 

Since 1895 Miss Carl has lived in Paris. Her work is 
well known there and has won her the honor of membership in 
the French Academy of Fine Arts. 

Miss Carl formerly had a studio in Memphis and this city 
still holds many close friends, admirers and students of the 
gifted woman. Several of her pictures hang in Memphis homes 
also; one of these, owned by Mrs. D. P. Hadden, "Bubbles," is 
a life-sized picture of charming children blowing bubbles. 
This picture hung in the Cossitt Library for a long while and 
so is well known to many Memphians. 

The standard of music in Memphis rose also and the jigs 
and reels of early days gave place by degrees to cultivated 



484 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

music, as the people became more appreciative of harmony 
and its high sense. 

A Mendelsohn Society was formed in the early seventies 
and the study done in this society not only improved the mem- 
bers but caused them to give several public concerts and 
bring artists to Memphis, so reaching the people. Later the 
Mozart Society was organized with twelve prominent busi- 
ness men of Memphis of the board of directors, and this society 
did a great deal of work. In 1883 they gave a music festival 
with the Theodore Thomas Orchestra and a well-drilled chorus 
of two hundred fifty voices in "Elijah." The following year 
the "Redemption" was given, having the same orchestra and 
two hundred fifty voices ; and excerpts were given from Mid- 
summer Night's Dream, Lohengrin, the Meistersingers and the 
Valkyrie. The great singers brought for this festival were the 
"Wagnerian trio," Materna, Wilkleman and Scaria, besides 
Christine Nilsson and Emma Juch, 

A few seasons later the Appollo Club gave the "Messiah," 
the "Creation" and several less pretentious productions, under 
Alfred Ernst, with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and these 
were very successful. 

In 1888 a musical organization was formed that has done 
a great deal for the musical development of Memphis. This is 
the Beethoven Club, which is treated as a club in another 
chapter. These women have brought many musical artists to 
Memphis among them, Enrico Campobello, Johanna Gadski, 
"William II. Sherwood, Schumann-IIeink, Lillian Nordica, Josef 
Lhevinne, Emil Liebling and the Spiering Quintette, New York 
Symphony Orchestra, under Damrosch and the Dresden Phil- 
harmonic Orchestra. 

A Musical Festival was given at the Auditorium in May, 
1895, which gratified the music lovers, especially as every per- 
formance was greeted by a large audience. In this concourse 
of singers were many renowned artists and an immense chorus 
of home talent, making it the greatest concert troop ever 
gathered in Memphis before. The Messiah was given one night 
and received applause and demonstrations that must have grati- 
fied even those artists who were accustomed to applause. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 485 

While the clubs were improving taste in music the theatres 
interspersed their dramatic with musical productions and in 
the nineties their managers brought many first-class and some 
famous musical artists here. January 20, 1890, "William H. 
Sherwood gave a concert at the Lyceum and the Thompson 
Opera Company gave "Said Pasha." In April of that year 
this theatre also had a series of operas by the Boston Ideals, 
who gave Rigoletta, II Trovatore, Faust and Lucia. 

March 7, 1892, the Second Presbyterian Church gave a 
concert, conducted by Signer Campobello, made up of home tal- 
ent and the result showed that Memphis at that time had 
some excellent musical ability. 

Miss Marie Greenwood, now Mrs. Worden, a talented 
young Memphis woman who had made a name in the musical 
world, gave "Amorita" at the Lyceum in August, 1893. Her 
voice was wonderful and when the audience could forget the 
singing and forget the woman they were glad indeed to know 
she was a Memphian. 

In January, 1894, the great Adelina Patti, with her won- 
derfully preserved voice, was at the Grand, drawing an audi- 
ence from many miles around Memphis. 

Bands had become popular and in 1895 Gilmore's Band 
gave concerts at the Lyceum, Sousa's Band, with their many 
instruments, gave a rousing concert at the Auditorium and the 
same year the Damrosch Opera Company was at the Grand. 

Ellen Beach Yaw greeted a large and appreciative audience 
in March, 1895, charming her hearers with her marvelous range 
of voice. 

In the summer of that year East End Park gave a series 
of operas and dramas that were well attended and much 
enjoyed by the people who stayed in Memphis during the 
warm months. One of the drawing numbers of that year's 
park entertainments was the McKee Rankin-Drew Company 
in "Arabian Nights." That same season the East Park Com- 
pany gave the great spectacular "Last Days of Pompeii." 

Madame Tavary in November, 1895 gave "Lohengrin" at 
the Lyceum, when fashion attended in large force and the 
house was filled to its utmost capacity. She was assisted by an 



486 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

excellent company. During that same month there was a 
week of Grand Opera by the Tavary Company, which was 
so well attended that there was no longer doubt about the 
uplift of musical taste among the people. 

The May Festival was repeated in 1896 and was a great 
success. On the opening night "Creation" was given, greeted 
by nearly three thousand people. The "Messiah" was the last 
night's performance and brought forth much enthusiasm from 
the audience. 

In November of that year Lillian Nordica, with the Linde 
Concert Company, came to the Auditorium. In this company, 
besides the great Nordica, were William H. Rieger, John C. 
Demsey and Signor C. DcMacchi. 

When the Bostonians came to the Grand in 1898 Memphis 
greeted them with a crowded and enthusiastic house. There 
were two Memphis girls with the company, Eunice Drake, 
who took tlie leading soprano role and Nellie Chapman, who 
showed her ability as a pianist. The friends of these young 
women gave them an ovation and they deserved all the atten- 
tion they received as they were both artists of no mean pre- 
tension. 

Many Memphis girls were on the stage at that time, all 
doing creditable work and some holding positions as stars. 
Among these, besides the two above, were Maud Jeffries, Dor- 
othy Sherrod, Bessie Woodson, May Montedonico, Charlotte 
Severson, Emma Miller, Laverne Meacham and Florence Kahn, 
whom the great Irving had complimented so highly, and who 
played in his company. 

May Montedonico appeared in Memphis in 1898 in "Miss 
Francis of Yale" and was enthusiastically received. 

In the summer of 1898 two parks gave opera and vaude- 
ville to the "stay-at-homes" — East End and Jackson Mound 
Parks, and were well patronized. 

The drama kept pace with music during the nineties and 
the managers of the different play-houses endeavored to bring 
attractions to their stages to please all the people. Of course 
that meant a wide range, from cheap vaudeville to high-class 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 487 

drama, but the general tendency was ever toward elevating the 
stage. 

In January of 1890 the popular little actress, Annie Pix- 
ley, came to the Lyceum and she was followed by the inimita- 
ble Sol Smith Russell in ''A Poor Relation." 

February brought "Little Lord Fauntleroy," for the chil- 
dren, the Primrose and West minstrels, Cora Tanner, Fanny 
Davenport in "La Tosca" and Clara Morris. Marie Wain- 
wright followed in March in "Twelfth Night." 

Later in the season some Memphis amateurs gave "Uncle 
Dick," for the benefit of the Jefferson Davis monument and it 
was cleverly done. 

As new theatrical stars rose and others waned Memphis 
was not behind in learning the strength and weakness of most 
of them. In 1892 Margaret Mather, with a strong company, 
was here ; Otis Skinner, in "Joan of Ark," "Romeo and Juliet" 
and "Leah the Forsaken;" E. H. Sothern in "The Highest 
Bidder;" DeWolf Hopper in "Wang;" Robert Downing in 
"Ingomar. " 

Downing opened the year 1893 at the Grand Opera House 
with "Virginius," and the Lyceum opened with "The County 
Fair." These were followed by Robert Graham in "Larry the 
Lord;" Harry Lacy in "The Planter's Wife;" Annie Pixley 
in "Miss Blythe of Duluth;" James O'Neill in "Fontenelle ;" 
Richard Mansfield in "Beau Brummel;" Fanny Davenport in 
"Cleopatra;" Marie Wainwright in "School for Scandal" at 
the Grand; and at the Lyceum, by Frank Daniels in "Dr. 
Cupid;" Patti Rosa in "Dolly Varden" and "Miss Dixie;" 
Daniel Frohman in "The Wife;" Lillian Lewis in "Lady Lil." 

The Grand gave summer opera that year where light 
opera and drama were enjoyed under electric fans. 

The following fall Ward and James gave a heavy reper- 
toire, which was much appreciated; the commedians Sol Smith 
Russel and W. H. Crane followed one another ; Katie Emmett 
gave Irish plays that were charming; and then came Lewis 
Morrison; Roland Reed; Thomas Keene in Shakespeare; Her- 
man the Great with his wonderful feats of legerdemain ; Clara 
Morris; Wilson Barrett and Maud Jeffries in Shakespeare; 



488 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Alexander Salvini ; and Joseph Jefferson in the play that made 
him famous and which he made famous, "Rip Van Winkle." 
Mr. Jefferson was invited to lecture in the Peabody Hotel 
dining-room which he did and there he was given an ovation. 
This ovation continued in the evening at the theatre when he 
appeared on the stage. 

In 1896 the large Auditorium, corner of Main and Lin- 
den, was converted into a theatre and it was opened in Sep- 
tember with "The Streets of New York." This building had 
formerly housed street-cars and mules and was afterwards 
fitted up for a lecture hall to accommodate large audiences. 

The coming of Mrs. Fiske to the Lyceum in 1897 brought 
a treat to theatre-goers and she was well supported. In her 
company were James M. Colville, Clara Morris, Barton Hill 
and Mary Maddern. 

Later Clara Morris came to the Grand, appearing in 
"Camille," and those great actors, Henry Irving and Ellen 
Terry came and drew large and appreciative audiences to 
their Shakespeareian performances. 

The closing years of the century saw an increase in the- 
atrical attendance and brilliant stars shone here and there in 
the plays given. It would be tiresome to name them all but 
nearly all of those mentioned returned and many others were 
engaged and came. 

Mardi Gras was revived and lasted a couple of seasons 
but did not bring its old-time favor and died. 

Some of the lecturers who gave their elevating sort of 
amusement during these years were Thomas Nelson Page, at 
the Grand; Henry Watterson on "Money and Morals;" Rob- 
ert Burdette with his wit; Will Allen Dromgoole, with her 
charming Southern stories; Hamlin Garland; Susan B. An- 
thony; Carrie Chapman-Catt ; "Bob" Taylor with his "Fiddle 
and Bow," and on another occasion this popular lecturer and 
his brother "Alf" together, giving their well-known lecture 
on "Dixie and Yankee Doodle." 

Several amateur entertainments of credit were given dur- 
ing this decade, notably those of Miss Lewellyn and Mrs. 
Wiltshire, afterward Mrs. Hammond. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 489 

Miss Grace Lewellyn is one of the educators of Memphis 
to whom the city owes a debt of gratitude. Miss Lewellyn 
came to Memphis in the early seventies, a young girl graduate 
from Nazareth, Kentucky, after the death of her father, who 
left her entirely orphaned a short while after the death of her 
mother. Through the influence of friends of her father, Dr. 
Lewellyn, she obtained a position as teacher. She taught for 
several years in Miss Conway's school in regular literary work 
but her talent in elocution and her success with children in 
this line of work brought her much praise so, encouraged by 
teachers and friends, she took vacation courses and made a 
specialty of dramatic work. After becoming absorbed in her 
new labors she took several leading roles in plays in which 
she was so successful that she became stage-struck and 
accepted a theatrical position in New York. This life did not 
prove the paradise of ease and fame in reality that it had in her 
girlish imagination, so she gave it up and returned to Mem- 
phis. She obtained the position of elocution and physical cul- 
ture teacher in the Memphis City High School, where she 
taught for a number of years, in addition to having private 
classes in her home. 

Miss Lewellyn 's entertainments, given by herself and 
pupils, under her supervision, grew to be very popular and 
her own popularity grew apace. In 1895 she opened the Mem- 
phis Conservatory in the new Lyceum Building, with a corps 
of teachers for the different arts, chosen from the best talent 
of Memphis. She conducted the elocution and physical cul- 
ture departments herself and made a great deal of money, but 
with a heart full of sympathy for the world and an ever-ready 
attention for those in need, her money went out as fast as 
it was earned. Many men and women owe their start in life 
to the sympathy and material help of this generous woman. 

Many of Miss Lewellyn 's pupils went on the stage and 
became successful actors, some even stars of note. These stu- 
dents never accepted stage life because of their teacher's encour- 
agement but because they desired the profession themselves. 
She considered the life too trying, especially for young girls, 
and always advised her pupils to use their talents in other 



490 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

directions, which many did, but when they persisted, then she 
did all she could to make them proficient and her teaching has 
borne as good results as that of any other teacher of Memphis. 

In the summer of 1904 Miss Lewellyn became ill and went 
to New York in search of cure, but died while there. She 
made one of a trio of good teachers lost to Memphis within 
that year, the others being Misses Higbee and Conway. Would 
that a monument stood to her memory in one of the parks, as to 
the other two, but even if no such tribute is ever erected to 
her memory, many hearts will revere her so long as life lasts, 
and the good that she did will go on bearing fruit even after 
her name might be forgotten. 

The Memphis Conservatory, organized by Grace Lewellyn 
in 1895, was the first Memphis school devoted to the arts and 
here were concerted a corps of teachers who did much to 
advance culture. To the arts was added languages and later 
a practical department in which stenography and typewriting 
were taught. 

The first faculty of the Memphis Conservatory consisted 
of: Miss Grace Lewellyn, director, elocution and physical 
culture ; Mrs. Gary Anderson, vocal culture ; Professor George 
Gerbig, instrumental piano music and harmony ; Professor 
Wm. Saxby, Jr., violin; Professor Edgar Sellec Porter, mando- 
lin, guitar and banjo ; Miss Ida King, guitar and mandolin ; 
Professor Henry Vorsheim, German Language and Fencing ; 
Professor P. M. Rodet, French language ; Miss Anna Rhea, 
painting in oil, water-color and China; Professor Wm. Saxby, 
Sr., and Misses Saxby, dancing and deportment;; Miss Kath- 
erine Southerland, stenography and typewriting.* 

All art work begun and accomplished in the Nineteenth 
Century has borne good fruit and in our little more than a 
decade of the Twentieth Century Memphis ranks as one of 
the most appreciative cities of higher arts in the country. The 
advancement in music has been more marked than in the others 
but they too, give promise. There is at least a large appreciation 

♦During later years Mrs. Marie Greenwood Worden taught vocal 
in the Memphis Conservatory and other artists were added or took 
the places of retiring teachers. 





'O^ 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 491 

of form, color and conformity in art, many beautiful pictures 
and statues — some of them master-pieces — adorn Memphis 
homes, a few good public monuments have been erected in the 
city and children are receiving an art foundation by having 
art instruction in the public and private schools. 

In 1904 Miss Solari received a second appointment on a 
jury of judges at a great world's fair, that of the Louisiana 
Purchase Exposition, when she was made one of fifty-six jurors 
of awards in the Fine Arts Building. At this Exposition her 
work was again awarded prizes and perhaps it will not be 
amiss here to state that when the Daughters of the American 
Revolution were having their Liberty Bell moulded Miss Solari 
sent her finest medals to become part of the bell. 

In May, 1901 the Mozart Society gave their third Music 
Festival at the Auditorium, which was truly enjoyed. This 
Festival had the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Mozart 
Society chorus. 

1901 and 1902 brought Paderewski, the wonderful Russian 
pianist ; grand opera at the Auditorium by the Metropolitan 
Opera Company, wath the great Sembrich as one of its singers ; 
French opera at the Lyceum ; Creatore and his famous band ; 
and the renowned Josef Hofman at the Lyceum. 

Four Memphis girls appeared in Drama in their home town 
during the season of 1902-3, namely: Bessie Miller as Bonita 
in "Arizona;" Edna Robb in "Sweet Clover;" Myrtle McGrain 
as Minna in "Rip Van "Winkle" with Joseph Jefferson; and 
Adele Luehrmann, all talented young women. 

The dramas of course had many of the best and continued 
to bring great tragedians, comedians and all sorts of actors 
from over the world. In recent years we have had Louis 
James and Kathryn Kidder together; Mary Mannering; Julia 
Marlowe ; Sarah Bernhardt ; Richard Mansfield ; Maude Adams ; 
Victor Herbert and his orchestra, brought by the Beethoven 
Club; and many other shining lights of the advanced stage. 

In 1904 the Auditorium was again overhauled, refitted, 
the stage enlarged and reopened to the public as the Bijou 
Theatre, adapted for large productions. It continued to be 



492 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

used for various kinds of attractions until it was burned in 
1911. 

The Goodwyn Institute has been another great factor for 
culture in Memphis, its advantages being such as few cities 
of the world are possessed of. This building and its purposes 
have been treated in another chapter so here will merely be 
mentioned some of the many attractions that have been 
enjoyed within its walls by citizens of all classes of society, 
entirely free of charge, according to the will of its donor. 

This institute was opened to the public on the night of 
September 30, 1907, and every season since has added its 
important quota to Memphis advancement and Memphis cul- 
ture. The lectures given at the Goodwyn are selected for their 
educational value and cover a wide range, carefully selected 
by the Goodwyn Institute superintendent, Mr. C. C. Ogilvie. 
Some of these that have helped artists of the various sorts and 
benefitted all the hearers in the season of 1908-9 were: "An 
Evening of American Fiction," by Mrs. Isabell Cargill Beeeher ; 
"Seeing Things," by Pitt Parker, cartoonist and crayon artist 
who worked before his audience; "In a Sculptor's Studio," 
by Lorando Taft, showing the interior of a studio and its work 
in clay ; numerous literary lectures and some with stereoptican 
views of high merit. 

During 1909-10 the Goodwyn gave us such artists as Henry 
Turner Bailey in "The Town Beautiful," "Not Fancy Work 
but Handicraft ; ' ' Frederick Warde in four lectures on Shake- 
speare ; Mrs. William Calvin Chilton on "Southern Stories 
from Southern Writers;" Dr. Eugene May on the "Passion 
Play of Oberammergau ; " Ross Crane, showing drawing and 
clay modeling ; and Lester Barlett Jones, A. B., on "The Growth 
of Song," "The Analysis of Song," "Folk Songs," "Masters 
of German Song," "Songs from Scattered Lands," and "Songs 
of England and America," all these lectures accompanied on 
the piano by Professor Gerbig of our city. 

The season of 1910-11 was so rich in attractions that it is 
difficult to leave out any, so only three will be mentioned. 
These : — William Sterling Battis gave three fascinating lectures 
on "Life Portrayals," from Charles Dickens' characters, in cos- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 493 

tume, "Oliver Twist" and "Nicholas Nickleby;" A. T. Van 
Laer, an artist of note, gave five lectures, "Painting in Italy," 
"Painting in the Netherlands," "In Spain," "In England" 
and "In America;" and Garrett P. Serviss gave four astron- 
omy illustrated lectures that were a perfect delight and were 
the cause of an astronomy club being formed in Memphis. These 
were "The Beginning of Things," "The Sun as a Star," "Evo- 
lution in the Solar System," "The Planets," and "The End 
of Things, — Comets, Meteors and New Stars." 

The season lately closed held more delights which we will 
again illustrate by three only. Edward Howard Griggs of 
New York gave six delightful lectures on "Socrates," "St. 
Francis of Assisi," "Victor Hugo," "Carlysle," "Emerson," 
and "Tolstoi." Margaret Steele Anderson gave four art lec- 
tures on "The Great Presentations of Faith," "Modern Ger- 
man Romanticism," "The Spirit of Later French Painting," 
and "Impressions of Modern French Sculpture." Carl Fique 
gave four of the most charming lectures on music ever given 
here or elsewhere. Mr. Fique illustrated his lectures on the 
piano and gave his listeners the delightful sensation of listen- 
ing to Fairy-stories, with his simple narratives and simple and 
exquisite illustrations. These four lectures were "Rheingold," 
"The Walkure," "Siegfried," and " Gotterdammerung, " (The 
Dusk of the Gods.) 

The Beethoven Club has kept up its work and among 
other things organized the Symphony Orchestra of thirty 
musicians, which has done much toward the upbuilding of 
Memphis music. In 1909 this orchestra withdrew from the 
club and became an independent organization. Its name was 
changed to the "Memphis Symphony Orchestra," and its good 
work is still continued. 

In 1907 the Beethoven Club entertained the National Fed- 
eration of Musical Clubs. 

"While Mrs. Gilfillan was president of the Beethoven Club 
in 1910 she agitated giving monthly concerts to the public 
free of charge in the Goodwyn Institute Building. This gen- 
erous movement won the approval of the club and last winter 
these concerts were enjoyed by many who could not belong 



494 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

to the Club. Teachers especially commended these musicals, 
as they were given at an hour when they and the pupils could 
attend. Of course only first-class music is given and that coun- 
teracts much of the "rag-time" heard in this generation. 

At the instigation of this Club a piano was placed in the 
Front Street Mission for men, Mr. 0. K. Houck furnishing the 
piano for this purpose. A man is employed to play this instru- 
ment and the benefit already accomplished by giving the mem- 
bers good music, is marked. 

Still another benefit from this organization is tuition fur- 
nished to talented children who would perhaps not otherwise 
cultivate their gift. 

In 1910 a grand Musical Festival of five concerts was given 
at the Auditorium, conducted by Mr. Frederick Stock. The 
chorus of adults comprised 250 voices and that of children 
for the Wednesday afternoon concert, 300 voices. These chil- 
dren as well as the grown singers were most excellently 
trained and rang out in the big Auditorium a clear, happy 
whole that was a joy to the listeners. The choral director 
was Alfred Hallum and his work was never better than in 
Memphis at this grand musical treat — a festival indeed. The 
number of Memphis people interested in this great musical 
enterprise and who worked for it, both in and out of the club, 
women and men, and the large audiences that attended all 
the concerts, certainly showed a high order of musical taste 
in the inhabitants of this vicinity. 

We have mentioned East End Park, that gave pleasure 
in the nineties. This pleasure park closed for several seasons 
but Colonel D. Hopkins, who controlled large theatrical interests, 
reopened it in the spring of 1904. At first the park was only 
experimental but the original outlay of money reached into the 
thousands as the park grounds were barren fields save the old 
dance pavilion which had housed summer opera, vaudeville and 
other entertainments with varying success. The opening of the 
park was a dazzling occasion with its thousands of incandescent 
lights, which was an innovation to local amusement seekers. 

The park was operated by the Hopkins Company until 
1909. Then Mr. A. B. Morrison, with the aid of several busi- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 495 

ness men, organized a local corporation and took all the effects 
of the old company. The park has grown steadily and is a 
substantial part of summer recreation and amusement for 
Memphis people — a Mecca for children and grown-ups. Mr. 
Morrison says "The street railway extensions and the growing 
population of the city have caused the enterprise to become 
one of vast proportions and there is every indication that 
East End Park is a fixture for years to come." 

The officers of the park are W. H. Carroll, Jr., president; 
John H. Moriarty, vice-president ; J. S. White, treasurer ; John 
V. Bruegge, secretary; A. B. Morrison, general manager. 

In 1908 a three-story, fire-proof building was erected at 
291-3-5 Madison Avenue, by the Madison Avenue Theatre Build- 
ing Company, for a theatre and leased to the Jefferson Theatre 
Company November, 1908. This theatre is an ornament to the 
city with its cream-colored brick and terra-cotta trimmings and 
an artistic marquee of iron and glass stretching across the 
sidewalk. The lobby is of variegated Tennessee marble and 
the interior finishings and seating are in mahogany and leather. 

This new theatre was opened with a dramatic stock com- 
pany and presented standard and popular plays at popular 
prices, under the management of Mr. A. B. Morrison. 

Mr. Stainback follows the history of this new play-house, 
thus : 

"In September, 1909, the Jefferson opened as a link in 
the chain of vaudeville theatres under the direction of Wil- 
liam Morris. For six weeks high-class vaudeville at popular 
prices remained the policy of the house, but a few weeks later 
the theatre again became the home of a stock organization 
under the management of Mr. Morrison and as such finished 
the season 1909-1910. During the memorable summer of 1910, 
when plans for the theatrical war between Klaw and Erlanger 
(known as the Syndicate) and the Shubert's was formulated, 
Klaw and Erlanger secured a long term lease on the Jefferson in 
which to play their attractions; so the opening in September 
found the pretty Jefferson presenting the Syndicate shows at 
high (or standard) prices. At the close of the season 1910-1911 



496 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

quasi peace was declared between the warring factions of the 
theatrical world. 

May 1, 1911, Mr. Stainback, then operating the Bijou 
Theatre, secured the lease of the Jefferson. The Bijou Com- 
pany then made some improvements to the theatre and renamed 
it the Lyric. Under this management it opened in September, 
1911, with Mr. Jake Wells, president, and Mr. B. M. Stain- 
back, an experienced theatre man, manager. 

Again quoting Mr. Stainback : 

"On June 29, 1912, the Lyric closed its first season, the 
longest and most successful in the history of the theatre. 
Standard dramas and musical comedies at popular prices, 
booked through the Stair and Havlin agency, was the policy 
of the Lyric for the season 1911-1912." 

A form of entertainment that has become very popular in 
the last few years is Moving Picture Shows. These cheap 
shows reach so many tens of thousands of people that their 
power for good or evil is very great. Some people who produce 
these plays, like some novel writers, pander to the vulgar or 
brutish taste and harmful scenes portrayed as vividly as the 
moving pictures portray, are calculated to do more evil even 
than low novels. On the other hand, these pictures can be 
used for real education and the taste of onlookers raised rather 
than lowered. So, those who have the good of communities 
at heart and especially of growing boys and girls, can do no 
better moral work than to raise and enforce a pure standard 
for these shows, that are presented to the eyes and imaginations 
of so many thousands of young, middle-aged and old people. 

It is well to knew that in Memphis we have a Board of 
Censors, whose duty it is to see that no immoral or brutish or 
lowering plays of any sort, either in moving picture theatres 
or theatres where real people do the acting. This board con- 
sists of J. M. Brinkley, chairman; John M. Dean, secretary 
and I. B. Myers. It is the duty of this board to exclude from 
public exhibition all moving pictures or other plays which they 
consider unfit to be presented before the public. Still further, 
this board has authority to prosecute the performers of objec- 
tionable plays. Surely no work is more important than that 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 497 

which keeps the minds and thoughts of the people clean and 
elevates them. 

Memphis has good art teachers today, — many who are 
building on beauty and truth and it would be a pleasure to 
name them all and tell of their individual work if space per- 
mitted. 

The Society of Arts and Crafts is a school and sale-shop 
that teaches art work that is both practical and beautiful. This 
society was organized in 1907 by young women, Miss Grace 
Heiskell being the leader in the movement. She was made 
president and remained so until the last year, when she was 
made honorary president for life and Miss Mary Love elected 
acting president. Mrs. S. A. Wilkinson is vice-president ; Miss 
Estelle Lake secretary and Miss Octavia Love, treasurer. The 
shop was first conducted by Misses Louise Fleece and Rostand 
Betts and many pieces of beautiful work produced and sold 
there. Miss Betts later withdrew to pursue other work and 
now the shop is kept by Misses Fleece and Bessie Blanton, 
Miss Clara Schneider teaches art and Miss Fleece metal and 
jewelry work. Work from this school has taken first prizes 
at Knoxville, Chattanooga and Memphis fairs. 

Still another practical art that has been introduced into 
Memphis is stained-glass work, which is conducted by Mrs. 
Stanbro, a true artist in the line. Mrs. Stanbro has done 
some really beautiful work and is fast making a name for her- 
self. Miss Bessie Searcy, as assistant in this shop does excel- 
lent work too and at present she is designing work in a man- 
ner which pleases even the finished teacher, Mrs. Stanbro. 

Mrs. Marie Greenwood Worden, once so successful as an 
opera star, has left the stage and is teaching vocal in her home 
city with great success. Other artists teach our people and 
those who come from other places to be taught. There are a 
number of music and dramatic studios as well as of painting 
and sculpture, and the few artists in this line hope to see their 
important work grow as music has grown. 

The Southern Conservatory of Music in the Masonic Build- 
ing is doing good work under its four co-directors. Professors 
Jacob Bloom, who teaches violin ; J. G. Gerbig, piano ; Ernest F. 



498 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Hawke, piano-organ and theory ; and Herman Keller, vocal. 
Besides these leaders there are numerous other first-class 
teachers in the Conservatory of different branches of music, 
besides complimentary branches in languages, expression and 
physical culture. 

Band concerts have done much to build the musical taste 
of Memphis. These were inaugurated in 1904 with seventeen 
men, Professor William Saxby as director. These open-air 
concerts M^ere so successful the first summer that they have 
continued ever since, Professor Saxby being the leader every 
season but two. There are now twenty-five men in the band 
and the Park Commissioners are spending $7,000 a year for 
music for the Memphis public. The chief object of the Com- 
missioners is to improve the musical taste of the city and the 
improvement has come. Professor Saxby says: "It is a 
frequent occurrence to hear people humming or whistling 
snatches from the classics who, before the band concerts knew 
only rag-time." 



CHAPTER XXII 



Churches of Memphis 

^«jr HE early history of the churches of Memphis is involved 
111 in much obscurity and is based largely on memory 
^^ and tradition. Many articles relating to the first min- 
isters, or preachers as they were popularly known, in the fron- 
tier town, have been written, some amusing, some scurrilous, 
and some with a modicum of truth. But they were manifestly 
unreliable and those stories will not be noted here. 

The first minister of the gospel who is known to have 
begun active work in Memphis was Rev. Thomas P. Davidson, 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, familiarly known in later 
life as "Uncle Tommy Davidson." While Mr. Davidson did 
the first religious work in the then small village about 1826, 
he did not establish the first church. Religious meetings were 
held by him in a rough structure near the mouth of Wolf 
River, the landing place for Memphis at that date. Services 
were held in Memphis at intervals until 1832 by Methodist 
"Circuit riders," of whom in 1830, on the circuit including 
Memphis, were Reverends Thos. P. Davidson, M. S. Morris 
and J. E. Jones. In 1832 the Methodist Episcopal Church put 
forth a strong effort and determined to erect a house of wor- 
ship in Memphis. Rev. Francis A. Owen was commissioned 
as minister and a lot having been purchased from M. B. Win- 
chester on the east side of Second Street, near Adams, and a 
church building erected thereon called Wesley Chapel, the 
work of the Methodist Church was fairly begun. This Chapel 
is claimed to have been the first actual church structure built 
in Memphis. As the Methodists began first, their churches 
will be noticed first. 



500 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

When Wesley Chapel, referred to above, was nearly com- 
pleted services were held in it in June, 1832. The membership 
at first was only eleven persons. But it soon increased and in 
1845 the First Methodist Church was erected on the site of the 
chapel. It was a handsome building for that era, but was 
replaced in 1886 by the splendid granite edifice which stands 
on the adjoining lot at the corner of Second and Poplar Avenue, 
one of the handsomest of Memphis churches. 

The Pastors of the church since 1832 have been: Revs. 
Robt. Alexander, 1832 ; W. Phillips, 1833 ; T. P. Davidson, 1834 ; 
S. S. Moody, 1835 ; W. D. F. Sawrie, 1836 ; Isaac Heard, 1837 ; 
T. C. Cooper, 1838 ; followed the same year by Joab Watson ; 
Samuel Watson, 1839 ; P. T. Scruggs, 1841 ; S. S. Moody, 1842 ; 
Doctor Thweat, 1843; S. G. Starkes, 1844; Wesley Warren, 
1845; M. F. Blackwell, 1847; S. J. Henderson, 1848; Jas. L. 
Chapman, 1850; W. C. Robb, 1852; J. W. Knott, 1853; Thos. C. 
Ware, 1855; Jas. E. Temple, 1855-56; J. T. C. Collins, 1857; 
A. H. Thomas, 1858 ; W. T. Harris, followed by Samuel Watson 
1860; J. W. Knott, 1862; D. J. Allen, 1863; A. H. Thomas, 
1865; A. P. Mann, 1866; E. C. Slater, 1869; S. B. Suratt, 1873; 
E. C. Slater, 1877 ; R. H. Mahon, 1878 ; S. A. Steel, 1882 ; and 
R. H. Mahan, 1886; S. A. Steele, 1887; R. H. Mahan, 1888; 
Warner Moore, 1889-90; W. G. Miller, 1891-92-93; C. B. Red- 
dick, 1894; R. D. Smart, 1895-98; J. C. Morris, 1899-1902; W. 
E. Thompson, 1903-1906 ; Lewis Powell, 1907-1910 ; T. W. Lewis, 
1911-1912. 

Asbury Church was founded in 1843. The early organiza- 
tion was weak and worshipped in a private house and in John 
Brown's carpenter shop on the corner of Hernando and Vance. 
Then a lot was purchased on the corner of Hernando and 
Linden at the instance of Rev. Moses Brock and a rude struc- 
ture erected, little better than a shack, which was called Asbury 
Chapel in honor of Bishop Asbury of the M. E. Church. In 
1847, a somewhat better frame building replaced the first one, 
in which worship was held until 1882, when the present brick 
building was erected, which is quite a handsome Gothic edifice. 

The pastors of this church have been Revs. Benj. A. Hayes, 
1843; D. W. Garrard, 1845; L. D. Mullins, 1846; W. C. Robb, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 501 

1847 ; A. H. Thomas, 1849 ; J. Henderson, 1850 ; Jos. H. Brooks, 
1852; Jas. W. McFarland, 1853 (died and was succeeded by 
B. M. Johnson) ; J. T. C. Collins, 1854 ; Phillip Tuggle, 1857 ; 
J. T. Meriwether, 1858; E. B. Hamilton, 1859; Robt. Martin, 
1860 ; Guilford Jones, 1861, who left on the Federal occupation 
in 1862 and his pastorate was filled by D. J. Allen; Guilford 
Jones, 1865; F. T. Petway, 1867; L. D. Mullins, 1869; J. H. 
Evans, 1871 ; E. E. Hamilton, 1873 ; J. C. Hooks, 1875 ; Guilford 
Jones, 1877; Warner Moore, 1879; David Leith, 1882; J. M. 
Spence, 1886. H. B. Johnston, 1890-93; G. T. Sullivan, 1894- 
96 ; E. B. Ramsey, 1897-98 ; R. W. Hood, 1899 ; W. A. Freeman, 
1900-02; G. W. Banks, 1903-06; G. B. Baskerville, 1907-10; 
Robt. A. Clark, 1910-11. 

When the brick church was erected in 1883, the name was 
changed to Hernando Street Church and upon the change of 
the street names the church name was changed to Second 
Church. 

Central Methodist Church was organized in 1860 and a 
church building, a small wooden affair, was dedicated by 
Bishop Geo. F. Pierce, in the same year. The church was organ- 
ized by Rev. J. T. C. Collins. In 1868 a splendid brick struc- 
ture was erected on Union Street, which cost $40,000, with 
a seating capacity of 750. The church had only temporary 
supplies during some years, but since 1868 the pastors have 
been as follows : Revs. W. M. Patterson, 1869 ; A. L. Prichard, 
1871; P. T. Scruggs, 1873; S. B. Suratt, 1873; E. C. Slater, 
1874; J. A. Heard, 1875; W. D. Harris, 1877; S. W. Moore, 
1879 ; S. B. Suratt, 1880 ; J. H. Evans, 1881 ; R. H. Mahon, 1882 ; 
R. W. Erwin, 1886; R. H. Mahon, 1887; R. W. Erwin, 1888- 
1890; Alonzo Monk, 1891-93; C. F. Evans, 1894-95; W. F. 
Hanmer, 1896-98; E. B. Ramsey, 1899; R. H. Mahon, 1900-1901; 
W. K. Piner, 1902-1904 ; W. T. Boiling, 1905-7 ; Wm. E. Thomp- 
son, 1908. In 1909 the Central Methodist Church moved to 
their new church on Peabody Avenue and renamed it St. John's 
Church : Wm. E. Thompson was pastor in that year and 1910 ; 
T. E. Sharp, 1911-1912. 

The Harris Memorial Church began its useful work in 
Memphis in 1899, with Rev. G. W. Banks as minister, followed 



502 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

in 1900 by Rev. W. J. McCoy who served three years. These 
were followed by G. H. Martin, 1903 ; W. W. Adams, 1904 ; R. 
W. Hood, 1905-6 ; J. C. Wilson, 1907-8 ; W. C. Waters, 1909-10 ; 
W. W. Armstrong, 1911 and H. W. Brooks, 1912. 

The Madison Heights Church, came into the Memphis cor- 
poration in 1899, with 0. H. Duggins as pastor. J. C. Wilson 
followed him in 1900 and stayed with the church until 1903; 
E. B. Ramsey succeeded in 1904 and served until 1908 when 
C. A. Warfield succeeded him. John T. Myers came to this 
church in 1909 and is still serving as her pastor. 

Saffarans Street Methodist Church, in 1867, a colony from the 
First Methodist Church, under the leadership of Rev. A. H. 
Thomas, organized a church on Saffarans Street, near Seventh 
Street, in Chelsea, and a small church building was erected there. 
The first pastor was Rev. M. Thomas, who, was followed in 
succession by Revs. J. C. Hooks, S. M. Roseborough, L. D. Mul- 
lins, W. R. Wilson, L. H. Holmes, J. P. Walker, R. S. Maxwell 
and J. S. Wiggins. Rev. W. H. Evans was pastor in 1886 ; W. 
W. Adams, 1892-94 ; C. D. Hilliard, 1895-96 ; G. W. Banks, 1897- 
98. 

The Springdale Methodist Church became one of the churches 
of the city in 1899. Her pastors since that time have been 
Reverends, Warner Moore, 1899-1902; J. J. Thomas, 1903-4; 
George Kline, 1905 ; R. M. King, 1906-9 ; W. W. Armstrong, 1910-- 
11; David Leith, 1912. 

Olive Street or Olive Dale Church, formerly outside of the 
corporation, became a Memphis Methodist Church, with G. W. 
Evans, pastor; he was followed in 1903 by B. S. McLemore, who 
was succeeded in 1906 by S. M. Griffin ; in 1909 by J. M. Max- 
well ; 1910 by C. Lee Smith and he still serves this church. 

Annesdale Methodist Church, corner of Rozell and Euclid 
Avenues, began its Memphis service in 1904. Its ministers since 
that time have been Reverends J. M. Maxwell, 1904-6 ; B. S. 
McLemore, 1907-8; R. B. Swift, 1909; S. M. Griffin, 1910; J. G. 
Williams, 1911-1912. 

New South Memphis Methodist Church is an active and 
far-reaching little church, beginning its career in the city in 
1906. The ministers have been the Reverends T. S. Stratton, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 503 

1906 ; J. T. Myers, 1907-8 ; E. R. Oberly, 1909 ; R. M. King, 1910; 
F. H. Cummings, 1911. 

The Methodists in South Memphis had a place of worship 
before the Civil War known as Davidson Chapel. This was 
destroyed during the war and in 1872 another building was 
erected and a congregation organized by Rev. W. M. Patterson 
on Georgia Street near Tennessee Street. The pastors of this 
church have been Revs. W. M. Patterson, 1872; T. P. Davidson, 
1872; Edward Slater, 1873; D. R. S. Robeborough, 1874; L. D. 
Mullins, 1875; J. D. Stewart, 1878; J. E. Treadwell, 1879; J. 
W. Knott, 1880 ; J. A. Moody, 1881 ; W. S. Malone, 1883 ; D. D. 
Moore, 1884 and W. H. Evans, 1886 ; D. D. Moore, 1887 ; W. H. 
Evans, 1888-1890 ; R. M. King, 1891-93 ; S. H. Williams, 1894-96 ; 
F. M. Leake, 1897-1901; J. M. Maxwell, 1902-3; A. F. Stein, 
1904-5; I. D. Cannaday, 1906-7; B. S. McLemore, 1908-11; J. 
L. Hunter, 1912. In 1899 the name of this church was changed 
to Pennsylvania Avenue Methodist Church, when the church 
was moved to that street. 

The Mississippi Avenue Methodist Church was organized in 
1893, since which time the following pastors have servedits 
people : H. C. Johnson, from 1893 through 1896 ; W. W. Adams, 
1897-99 ; G. W. Evans, 1900-1903 ; G. H. Martin, 1904-7 ; E. B. 
Ramsey, 1908-11; C. Brooks, 1912. 

The Lenox C hunch became a Memphis church in 1898, with 
Rev. 0. H. Duggins, pastor. He was followed by P. H. Roberts 
in 1899; H. C. Johnston, 1900-1903 ; W. C. Sellers, 1904-1907; G. 
H. Martin, 1908-11; H. 0. Hofstead, 1912. 

Washington Heights Methodist Church on South Wellington 
Street, though not old, is wide-awake and its members exert influ- 
ence for good among old and young in and out of its congre- 
gation. Rev. A. C. Bell became first pastor in 1909 and has 
remained with the church ever since. 

The Galloway Memorial Church was inaugurated in 1910 
with Reverend J. M. Maxwell as pastor. His successor in 1911 
was Reverend M. F. Leak and this helpful leader is still with 
the congregation. 

The Kentucky Street Methodist Church is only two years 
old, having begun its work in 1910. Reverend B. S. McLemore 



504 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

began its work as pastor and he still serves in making the new 
organization a strong one. 

Two Methodist Churches were born only this year, 1912, 
one, the Parkway Church, and the other, the Pepper Memorial 
Church. Of the former Reverend C. Lee Smith is pastor, and 
the latter, Reverend F. H. Cummins. 

The First Presbyterian Church was probably the second 
church in the city of Memphis to effect an organization. This 
was done June 17, 1828, under the direction of Rev. W. C. Blair, 
aided by Mr. L. Henderson, one of two gentlemen in the mem- 
bership, who was chosen as ruling elder. As in the case of the 
First Methodist Church noted above, this congregation had great 
trouble in finding a place to rest. The first record obtainable 
states that the members held their worship in the old log house 
which had been erected in Court Square just southwest of the 
fountain and was variously used by churches, schools and as a 
place of public meeting. 

In 1834 the church secured a lot, by donation, adjoining the 
old cemetery, which was on the corner of Third and Poplar, and 
a small church was erected. In 1850, a handsome brick struc- 
ture was built at the northwest corner of Third and Poplar on 
lot 378, the Old Cemetery lot. This cemetery had been removed 
in 1828, as stated in the general history, to Winchester Ceme- 
tery on Second Bayou, and this lot on which it had been located 
was donated by the deed of John Overton and others, successors 
of the proprietors of Memphis, to the city, on condition that it 
should no longer be used as a cemetery. The property of the 
First Presbyterian Church now stands on this ground. The 
original brick church was destroyed by fire in 1883 and the 
present edifice was erected on its site and dedicated in 1884. 
The pastors of this church have been Rev. "Wm. Patrick, stated 
supply, from December, 1829 to February, 1830 ; S. M. William- 
son from November, 1830 to November, 1833; Rev. Samuel 
Hodge, February 1834 to March 1837 ; Rev. J. Harrison, March, 
1837 to July, 1843 ; Rev. Geo. W. Coons, 1844 to 1852 ; Rev. S. 
Kay, 1853 ; Rev. J. 0. Steadman, May, 1854 to May, 1856 ; when 
he became pastor and continued until March, 1868; Rev. J. H. 
Bowman, 1868, to October, 1873; Rev. Eugene Daniel, April, 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 505 

1875 to 1893 ; E. A. Ramsey, 1894 to 1898 ; W. H. Neel, 1899 to 
1908 ; C. H. Williamson, 1910 to 1912. 

The Second Presbyterian Church was organized December, 
1844, with Alexander S. Caldwell and wife, Dr. Joseph N. Bybee 
and wife, Dr. R. H. Patillo and wife. Misses M. A., M. C, P. C, 
and M. L. Patillo, Mrs. Eliza Houston, Jas. D. Goff and wife, Miss 
L. C. Boyd, Seipio, Miss Boyd's slave, T. Pritchett, M. P. Prit- 
ehett and J. S. Levett. J, N. Bybee and R. H. Patillo were 
chosen elders; A. S. Caldwell and J. S. Levett were the first 
deacons and J. N. Bybee the first clerk. 

Rev. John H. Gray was the first pastor. Rev. R. C. Grundy 
held the pastorate from 1857 to 1861, and Rev. Jno. N. Waddel 
and J. H. Gray then supplied the pulpit for a time. Rev. T. D. 
Witherspoon was pastor from 1865 for several years and was 
succeeded by Rev. W. E. Boggs, who was pastor till 1879. In 
1881 Rev. J. M. Rose became pastor and was succeeded in 1882 by 
Rev. J. F. Latimer. In 1885 Dr. Boggs was again elected pastor. 
He served the church until 1890, when Rev. N. M. Woods was 
elected to the pastorate. Dr. Woods stayed with the church 
until 1903, when he was succeeded by Rev. A. B. Curry, who 
is still with the congregation. 

Alabama Street Presbyterian Chiirch was a colony led by 
Rev. J. 0. Steadman, pastor of the First Church, which organ- 
ized in 1868. The lot was donated by J. C. Johnson, at Alabama 
and Jones Avenue, and a small house erected. In 1872, the 
present brick structure was built in place of the cottage church. 
Rev. Dr. Steadman was pastor until 1880, when he was succeeded 
by Rev. E. E. Bigger, and he in turn by Rev. Wm. C. Johnson, 
who died the same year. The next pastor was Rev. Wm. Dar- 
nall, who held the pastorate about a year and was succeeded 
in July, 1885, by Rev. J. L. Martin. Doctor Martin was suc- 
ceeded in 1891 by Rev. W. McF. Alexander, who was succeeded 
in 1900 by Rev. T. A. Wharton. In 1903 Rev. W. M. Scott 
was pastor and he served until 1909, when Dr. L. E. McNair 
succeeded him. In 1911 Rev. T. M. Lowry was elected pastor 
and he is still with the church. 

Third Presbyterian Church was organized October 7, 1856, 
with four members. Rev. Edward E. Porter was stated supply 



506 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

for four years and became pastor on the 20th of October, 1860. 
In 1862 he resigned to enter the Confederate Army and the 
church was without a pastor until 1866, when Rev. Wm. Sample 
was elected, who served for two years and Rev. E. M. Richardson 
was then chosen pastor and installed June 13, 1869. 

In 1859, a church building was commenced and completed 
and dedicated October 21, 1860. It is a brick building with a 
seating capacity of 500 and stands on Sixth Street at the corner 
of Chelsea. 

In 1892 Rev. J. H. Lumpkin was chosen minister and he 
succeeded Rev. E. M. Richardson, who had been in the service 
of the church for a great many years. Rev. "W. L. Caldwell 
became pastor in 1896, Dr. J. H. Lumpkin succeeded him in 
1897 and he in turn again succeeded Doctor Lumpkin in 1898, 
since that time Doctor Caldwell has remained in the church. 

Lauderdale Presbyterian Church or Westminster Presbyter- 
ian Church began as a mission in 1868, on Union Street, at which 
time a small chapel was erected. Rev. Mr. Wycoff was the first 
Minister and was followed by Rev. J. F. Latimer. In 1874, the 
mission was organized as a church under the name of Union 
Street Presbyterian Church, and Rev. A. Shotwell was its pastor 
for about a year, followed by Rev. Jno. N. Waddel. Later a 
lot was purchased at Beale and Lauderdale Streets and a brick 
edifice was erected in 1876, after which the name was changed to 
Lauderdale Street Presbyterian Church. Doctor Waddel was 
succeeded by Rev. N. M. Long and he in 1881 by Rev. R. A. 
Lapsley. In 1882, Rev. Sam'l Caldwell was elected. About two 
years ago the church was removed to Lamar Boulevard and Belle- 
vue Avenue and a handsome building erected and the new church 
was dedicated and named the Westminster Presbyterian Church. 

From 1887 to 1889 Rev. S. C. Caldwell was elected minister 
and when he returned to his old church, the Third Presbyterian, 
Rev. J. H. Boyd became pastor and served until 1894, when 
Rev. C. R. Hyde was elected. In 1898 this pulpit was filled by 
Rev. W. W. Akers and he was succeeded in 1909 by Rev. J. C. 
Molloy. In 1911 Rev. C. 0. Groves became pastor and he is the 
present incumbent. 

We find the Porter Street Presbyterian Church in 1896, with 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 507 

Rev. J. D. Fleming as pastor and he was succeeded in 1901 by 
Rev. J. L. Bowling. In 1906 to 1908 Rev. J. H. Morrison was 
pastor of this church. 

In 1906 the McLemore Avenue Presbyterian Church was 
organized and Rev. J. H. Morrison was the first pastor. He 
remained in the service until 1912, when Rev. "W. W. Harrison 
was elected to serve the church. 

Idlewild Presbyterian Church was originally organized June 
2, 1867, as the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church, on Park 
Avenue, in the eastern suburbs of Memphis. The organization 
was effected by a commission appointed by the Presbytery of 
Memphis and composed of Rev. J. 0. Steadman, Rev. A. W. 
Young and Rev. Jno. S. Park and ruling elders J. L. Dennison 
of the First Church and R. H. Patillo of the Second Church. 

On June 10, 1867, Rev. John S. Park was chosen as stated 
supply and elected and installed on July 7, 1868 as pastor. In 
1879 Rev. Horace M. Whaling became pastor and was succeeded 
about a year later by Rev. Nicholas M. Long, who in a few 
months w^as succeeded in turn by Rev. Chas. Heiskell. Within 
a year Mr. Heiskell left Memphis and Rev. R. R. Evans of Ger- 
mantown became stated supply. In 1886 Rev. Lee H. Richard- 
son was elected pastor and was succeeded December, 1888 by 
Rev. H. M. Pointer, who served until March 1, 1889. 

In the fall of 1890 a movement was started to organize 
a church in the eastern suburbs to be called the Idlewild Pres- 
byterian Church, and after several conferences the old organ- 
ization of the Park Avenue Church changed the name of the 
church to the Idlewild Presbyterian Church and in January, 
1891, purchased a lot on Peabody Avenue and constructed a 
small church there at the corner of Barksdale, which was 
dedicated October 11, 1891. The first pastor was Rev. Hamilton 
A. Hymes, installed July 14, 1892. He was succeeded January 
20, 1895 by Rev. Sterling J. Foster, who was installed May 
12, 1895. In the same year the church was removed to the 
corner of Union and McLean Avenues and the building was 
remodeled and reopened for worship August 25, 1895. The 
next pastor was Rev. W. C. Alexander, installed November 8, 
1903, who continued to serve the church as pastor until July 



508 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

10, 1910. In 1909 the congregation erected the present hand- 
some brick structure on McLean Avenue at the corner of 
Union, at a cost of $26,000, which was dedicated December 12, 
1909. The next pastor was Rev. Wm. Crowe of Abingdon, Va., 
who was installed April 30, 1911, and is pastor at the present 
time. 

Calvary Church has been called the Mother Church of the 
Episcopal faith in Memphis, the Parish having been organized 
in 1832, and the church existed for a number of years as the 
only one of this denomination in the city. The first church 
building stood on Second Street between Adams and "Washing- 
ton. In 1841 the present edifice on the corner of Adams and 
Second Street was erected and was much enlarged and improved 
in 1880, and now contains a seating capacity of 750. The early 
history of the church is rather obscure, but Rev. Thos. Wright 
seems to have been the first rector of the parish, followed by Rev. 
George Wells. He was succeeded shortly after by Rev. Phillip 
Alston and Doctor Alston was in turn succeeded by Rev. D. C. 
Page. Bishop Jas. H. Otey and Bishop C. T, Quintard in turn 
served this church, but the dates of services are not clear. They 
were succeeded by Rev. Dr. Geo. White, who was rector for years. 
Doctor White was succeeded in 1883 by Rev. David Sessums, 
who resigned late in 1886 and was succeeded by Rev. Dr. E. 
Spruille Burford. Doctor Burford was succeeded by Rev. F. P. 
Davenport, who was in turn succeeded by Rev. James Winchester, 
who is now Rt. Rev. Bishop Winchester, of Arkansas. The pres- 
ent rector is Dr. W. D. Buckner. 

St. Mary's Parish was founded in 1857 by colony from 
Calvary Church under Rev. C. T. Quintard. The church lot was 
donated by Mr. Robt. C. Brinkley and is located at the junction 
of Poplar and Orleans, running back to Alabama Street. For 
fourteen years Rev. Richard Hines was rector and at the close 
of his rectorship the parish was made a cathedral or church of 
the bishops of the diocese. Rev. Geo. C. Harris was called from 
1871 to 1881, when he resigned. He was succeeded by the dean. 
Rev. Wm. Klein, who was succeeded in 1894 by Rev. H. M. 
Dumbell. In 1887 Rev. C. H. B. Turner became dean and in 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 509 

1900, Rev. S. H. Green, who served until 1902. In that year 
Dean Morris was chosen and he is still with the church. 

Grace Church was organized in 1853, but the Parish did not 
become a member of the Diocesean Convention until 1858. The 
first church building was on Hernando Street and in this the con- 
gregation worshiped until 1865. The property was then sold 
and a building on the corner of Vance and Lauderdale Street 
was purchased in which worship was from thence on held. 

In 1876 Grace Church, and the Parish of St. Lazarus were 
united and the new organization now called Grace Chruch was 
admitted into union with the Diocesean Convention in 1879. 
The rectors have been : Rev. Geo. P. Schelky, 1857 ; Edward 
McClure, 1859 ; Jno. A. Wheelock, 1864 ; B. F. Brooks, 1867 ; Jas. 
Carmicheal, 1869 ; Chas. Carroll Parsons, 1878, died of yellow 
fever same year ; W. T. D. Dalzell, 1879 ; Edgar Orgain, 1881 ; 
Wm. Page Case, 1884; Geo. Patterson, 1885; and this forceful 
man stayed with Grace Church until his decease in 1900. Rev. 
Granville Allison was pastor from 1903 to 1907. Rev. R, M. 
Black was elected to succeed him and served until 1911. The 
present incumbent is Rev. John B. Cannon. 

Church of the Good Shepherd was organized as the out- 
growth of a mission in Chelsea in 1865, by Rev. Jas. A. Vaux. 
The worshippers first met in private houses, but during the 
same year a lot was purchased on Mill and Fourth Streets and 
the present structure was erected and dedicated in 1866. Mr. 
Vaux continued as rector until 1870, when he was succeeded by 
Rev. Chas. C. Parsons, who remained until after the church 
was admitted as a parish in the diocese in 1872. Subsequent 
rectors have been Revs. Ruth, Tupper, Gee, Yeater, Grantham, 
Jury, Young, and H. Dunlap, who was rector in 1886; R. C, 
Young, 1887; Jos. C. Berne, 1892; H. M. Dunkell, 1893; S. B. 
McGlohon, 1894-7; J. P. McCullough, 1898-9; J. M. Northrup, 
1900; J. D. Windiate, 1901-6; R. W. Rhames, 1907-11; George 
L. Neide, 1912. 

St. Luke's Mission Episcopal Church was established in 1891, 
and in 1898 the church had grown so that it was able to have 
a regular pastor. Rev. C. A. Chism was pastor in 1898 and he 
was followed by Reverends E. S. Bazzette-Jones, 1899-1900; H. 



510 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

L. Marvin, 1900 ; H. W. Armstrong, 1902 ; F. D. Devall, 1903-6 ; 
H. W. Wells, 1907-11 ; E. Bennett, 1912. 

The Church of the Holy Trinity on Cummings Street is a 
thrifty little church, not very old. Its pastor in 1904-6 was 
Rev. Peter Wager and he was succeeded by Rev. Prentiss A. 
Pugh in 1907, who is still in the service. 

Another recently instituted Episcopal Church is St. Alhan's 
Chapel, on Florida Avenue. Rev. Craik Morris became its pastor 
in 1905 and he is the present incumbent. 

The First Baptist Church was organized the 4th day of April, 

1839. The preliminary meeting was held at the house of Spencer 
Hall and the persons signing the articles were Geraldus Buntyn, 
T. Carpenter, S. M. Isbell, Spencer Hall, Martha F. Carpenter, 
Rebecca Walton, Martha O. Mosby, Pamelia A. Fowlks, Mary 
Land, Dorcas Hall and Sherwood Walton. The organization 
meeting took place in the old Magevney school house in Court 
Square. Rev. Jno. C. Holt and P. S. Gayle officiating. It is not 
shown in the record where the first meetings were held, but in 
1845 a Committee was appointed to secure a site and erect a build- 
ing. A lot was purchased on Second Street between Washington 
and Adams and a temporary house of worship was fitted up. 
About 1847 the brick building so well known was erected and 
remained in service until 1888, when a new church edifice was 
built on the same site. This building and site was appropriated 
by Shelby County as part of a site for a new court house in 1908 
and the church purchased the lot and erected a handsome modern 
building at the corner of Linden and Lauderdale Streets. 

The records show that Rev. L. H. Milliken was pastor in 

1840, B. F. Farnsworth in 1842, E. C. Eager in 1842, and Rev. 
S. S. Parr in 1843. Rev. P. S. Gayle was called to the pastorate 
in 1846. Rev. John Finley in 1849, Rev. C. R. Hendrickson in 
1852, Rev. F. J. Drane in 1857 and Rev. S. H. Ford in 1862. 

The church was used as an army hospital by the Federal 
Army during the occupation of Memphis and no services were 
held in the building. But in 1863, Rev. A. B. Miller was elected 
pastor, followed by Rev. D. E. Burns in 1868, and he was followed 
in turn by Revs. J. T, Tiehenor in 1871, Geo. A. Lofton in 
1872, R. B. Womack in 1877, W. A. Montgomery in 1879 and 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 511 

R. A. Venable in 1880. From 1887 to 1892 Rev. R. A. Venable 
was pastor ; in 1893 he was succeeded by Rev. R. J. Willingham. 
Rev. E. A. Taylor came to the church in 1894 and served until 
1899. In 1900 Rev. A, U. Boone was elected to the pastorate and 
he is still with the church. 

Before the Civil War the Baptists had a church on Beale 
Street and a mission down in Fort Pickering, but at the close 
of the war there was but one Baptist Church in Memphis, and 
that in the northern part of the city. It was determined at that 
time to organize the Central Baptist Church, to which the Beale 
Street Church conveyed their property and the First Church 
gave a liberal donation. The new church was organized Decem- 
ber 1, 1865, in the First Church and Rev. S. H. Ford was chosen 
pastor. The Central Church then obtained a lot on Court Street 
and erected thereon the Tabernacle, a wooden building which 
was used until 1868. The site for the present church was pur- 
chased in 1867, on Second Street North of Beale for $22,500, 
but only a basement structure was erected, which was completed 
in 1868, and was used as the church for 17 years. The building 
was completed, after long delays, and dedicated December 6, 
1885, the total cost being $130,000. The pastors have been as 
follows: Rev. S. H. Ford, from 1865 to 1871; Rev. Sylvanus 
Landrum, October 1878 to July 1, 1879 ; Rev. Thos. L. Rowan, 
January 1, 1880 to July 29, 1882 ; and he was followed November 
1, 1882, by Rev. A. W. Lamar. In 1888 Rev. J. A. Dickerson 
became pastor; in 1891, Rev. F. R. Boston; in 1894, Rev. B. A. 
Nunnaly; in 1896, Rev. T. S. Potts; in 1911, Rev. J. L. White, 
who is still wdth the church. 

Chelsea Baptist Church was also organized as a mission 
church in 1860, by Dr. W. G. Lawrence, with ten members and 
R. M. C. Parker and A. G. Thompson as deacons. The first 
place of worship was a dwelling house located on the old fac- 
tory lot, as known at that day, and in 1861 a small frame building 
was erected on Front Street between Mill and Sycamore. The 
Mission became an independent congregation in 1865. The fol- 
lowing pastors served at different periods in this congregation: 
Revs. Lancaster, Harbin, Caperton, Butler, Mitchell, Tragett, 
Powell, Crews, Stewart and Lipsey. 



512 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

The Rowan Memorial Baptist Church was instituted in 1891, 
with Rev. J. H. Snow, pastor. He was succeeded by the Rever- 
ends W. L. Slack, 1893-4; W. L. Norris, 1897; R. N. Lucado, 
1898 ; I. W. Page, 1899 ; Charles Lovejoy, 1900 ; R. W. Richard- 
son, 1901-3 ; W. J. Bearden, 1904-7 ; W. L. Savage, 1909 ; D. D. 
Chapman, 1910; W. J. Bearden, 1911; 0. A. Utley, 1912. 

The Johnson Avenue Baptist Church had five years existence, 
with the following pastors : Reverends W. T. Hudson, 1898 ; A. 
P. Moore, 1899-1900. T. T. Thompson, 1901-2. 

Trinity Baptist Church came into being in 1891, with Rev. 
M. D. Early as pastor, who served until 1894. His successors 
were Reverends W. F. Dorris, 1895; G. B. Thrasher, 1896-7; 
Hamlett, 1898; E. L. Smith, 1900; J. W. Lipsey, 1901-4. 

Seventh Street Baptist Church was started in 1903. Rev. 
T. T. Thompson was pastor and served the church until 1906, 
when Rev. I. N. Strother succeeded him. Doctor Strother is still 
with the church. 

The Lenox Baptist Church became a member of the Baptist 
Church organization in Memphis in 1904, with Dr. K. W. Reese 
as pastor who remained so until 1908. He was then succeeded 
by Rev. Davis W. Bosdell in 1909 and in 1911 by Rev. E. L. Wat- 
son, who is still with this church. 

La Belle Place Baptist Church, started in Memphis with 
Rev. George W. Sherman, pastor. In 1908 J. N. Lawler became 
pastor. He was followed in 1909 by Rev. J. E. Dilworth, who 
served until 1911, when Rev. D. A. Ellis became pastor and he 
is now in this service. 

The M>cL&more Avenue Baptist Church came into being in 
the city in 1906, the Rev. T. T. Thompson being pastor. In 1908 
Rev. W. J. Bearden was pastor and he was followed in 1911 by 
E. G. Ross who was succeeded in 1912 by the first pastor. Rev. 
T. T. Thompson. 

The Bellevue Boulevard Baptist Church has been within the 
corporation of Memphis since 1909, since which time Rev. H. P. 
Hurt has been pastor. 

First Cumberland Presbyterian Church was organized in 
August 1840 with 18 members at a time of the revival held by 
Rev. Sam'l Bennett and Reuben Burrow. Of the early members 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 513 

of the church are Jno. D. White, Sam'l D. Key, W. D. S. Garri- 
son, W. B. Waldran, Mrs. S. A. Waldran, Jas. White, A. Hutch- 
inson, Albert White and Jno. D. White, Jr., Mathilda James, 
Maria Stewart, Chas. Stewart, Sabra White, Eliza Key, Ann Wa-1 
dran, P. Hutchinson, Mary C. Stewart and Sophia E. Garrison, A 
lot was purchased the same year in September, 1844 the cor- 
nerstone of the church was laid with Masonic ceremony, but the 
house was not finished until 1845. The first pastor of this 
church was Rev. Sam'l Dennis, elected the first week after its 
organization ; Rev. Robt. Donnell for a part of the year 1845, then 
Samuel Dennis again until 1851, followed by Herschell S. Porter 
and in 1856 by A. M. Bryan, who resigned in 1859. Mr. Bryan 
was followed by Rev. C. A. Davis, who was pastor till 1867; 
Rev. L. C. Ransom in 1868 to 1874, Rev. G. T. Stainback, 1875 
to 1879 ; when Rev. H. A. Jones became pastor. Just before 
the Civil War the present church building on Court Street was 
erected, a brick structure with a seating capacity of 1200. In 
1887 Rev. H. A. Jones was elected pastor; in 1897, Rev. Hugh 
Spencer Williams and 1910, Rev. W. J. King. 

Chelsea Cumberland Church was organized in 1872 by Rev. 
L. C. Ransom. Mr. E. T. Keel donated a lot on Fourth Street 
and the church was built thereon. Up to 1879 the pastors were 
Rev. L. C. Taylor and M. 0. Smith. Rev. G. B. Thomas was 
pastor for a short while and was followed in 1886 by the Rev. 
D. T. Waynick. 

The Third Cumberland Presbyterian Church was established 
in 1894 with Rev. H. A. Jones, pastor. He was succeeded in 
1897 by Rev. A. K. Burrow. 

The Georgia Street or Institute Cumberland Church was 
instituted in 18C7, with Rev. J. 0. Davidson, pastor, who is stiU 
guiding this flock. 

The Central Cumberland Church was inaugurated in 1898, 
when Rev. G. W. Martin was chosen pastor. He was succeeded 
in 1901 by Rev. R. Thompson; in 1908 by Rev. C. H. Walton 
who is the present incumbent. 

The Memphis Tabernacle (Cumberland) is a little church 
that existed during 1909 and 1910, with Rev. R. M. Neel, pastor. 



514 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

The Walker Heights Cumberland Church also existed dur- 
ing 1909 and 1910, with Rev. Richard Inge, pastor. 

About 1841 Father McAleer became the first resident Cath- 
olic priest and steps were taken to build a Catholic Church. 
Previous to that time irregular worship was held by the Catho- 
lics, as by the other church organizations, in the Magevney School 
House in Court Square and later a small wooden house was used, 
standing on the site of the Convent of the Dominican Fathers. 
In 1843 a small brick edifice costing $5,000.00, was built on 
Third Street near Adams. 

In 1845 this church, called St. Peter's, was under the care 
of the Dominicans and Father Jas. S. Alemany, afterwards 
Arch-Bishop of San Francisco, was appointed the second Catholic 
pastor in the city, assisted by Rev. Thos. L. Grace. Father 
Alemany was succeeded by Father J. H. Clarkson, who died in 
1849. Father Thos. L. Grace was then placed in charge and 
assisted by FatJier J. A. Bockel and J. V. Daly. 

In 1852 Father Thomas began the erection of the present 
St. Peter's Church, a splendid edifice, and it was dedicated in 
February, 1858 by Bishop Miles. 

In 1886, Rev. J. P. Moran was priest in charge, assisted 
by Revs. J. V. Edelen, F. A. Ryan and E. Ashfield. 

In 1887 Father M. D. Lilly became pastor of this church 
and he was succeeded by Reverend Fathers J. P. Moran, 1888- 
93 ; M. A. Sheehan, 1894-5 ; M. A. Horrigan, 1896-8 ; M. A. Shee- 
han, 1899-1902; F. A. Gaffney, 1903-6; J. P. Heffernan, 1907- 
1910; E. J. Farmer, 1910-12. 

The German Catholics of Memphis organized in 1852, the 
Society of St. Boniface. In that year Father J. Bockel pur- 
chased a lot on Union Street, but sold it in 1856 and another 
was purchased at Third and Market Streets as a site for the 
;S^^. Mary's German Catholic Chunch. A small frame house was 
built and fitted up in which Rev. W. J. Repis was installed as 
resident pastor in 1860, and he was followed in 1862 by Rev. 
Cornelius Thoma. In 1864 a brick building was commenced, 
which was completed in 1867, when Rev. L. Schneider succeeded 
Father Thoma. In 1870 Rev. Father Eugene Priers, of the 
Order of St. Francis, was sent as a minister and he was succeeded 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 515 

the same year by Rev. Killian Schlaser, and he in turn, in 1871, 
by Rev. Ambrosia Jansen, by whom a monastery was built in the 
rear of the church. In 1873 Rev. Lucian Bucholz became pastor 
until 1879, when he was followed by Rev. Aloysius Weiner. 
Father Weiner remained until 1885, and was succeeded by Rev. 
Nemesius Rhode, from Chicago, and he was followed in 1887 by 
Rev. Frances Moening. Father Nemesius returned in 1887 and 
his successors have been Fathers Francis Moening, 1888-1894; 
H. Fessler, 1895-8; P. Kohnen, 1899-1900; H. Japes, 1901; h! 
Fessler, 1902-8 ; Isidore Fosselman, 1909 ; H. Fessler, 1910-1912. 

Rev. Martin Riordon was sent in 1865 to take charge of a 
mission among the Catholics in southeastern Memphis. He 
founded a school on Wellington Street and in 1866 built St. Pat- 
rick's Parsonage, in which services were held on Sundays until 
the church could be completed. Subsequently a frame church 
building was erected on the corner of DeSoto and Linden Streets. 
Calvary Cemetery was founded by Father Riordon in 1867. In 
1878 Father Riordon died and was succeeded by Father Edward 
Doyle, who also died in 1879 of yellow fever and Father Quinn 
became pastor until 1881, when he was followed by Rev. Father 
Veale. Father John Veale watched over this church and its 
parish until his death in 1899, when the church lost a valuable 
pastor and many of its members and other people a true friend. 
Father Veale 's successor was Father F. T. Maron, who stayed 
with the church until 1904, when Father F. T. Sullivan became 
its pastor. He was succeeded by Father D. J. Murphy, who is 
the present incumbent. 

St. Bridgid's Church, erected at the corner of Third and 
Overton Streets, was opened for worship on Christmas day, 1870, 
by Rev. Martin Walsh, the first pastor. He was succeeded by 
Rev. Wm. Walsh, after the death of the former from yellow 
fever in 1878, assisted by Rev. Michael Ryan and Rev. Jno. J. 
Walsh. Father Walsh remained with this church until 1889, 
when Father Francis took his place. In 1896 Father J. K. Lar- 
kin came to the church and stayed with it until 1897. Father 
J. F. 'Neill succeeded him in that year and he is still with this 
parish. 

St. Joseph's Church was constructed in 1878, the comer- 



516 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

stone being laid March 17th, and the building standing on the 
corner of Georgia and Seventh Street, Rev. Antonia Luiselli 
was installed as pastor and continued so for many years. In 
1902 his successor became Father E. Gazzo and Father Gazzo is 
still with the church. 

Sacred Heart Catholic Church was opened for worship with 
Rev. Father P. L. Mahony as pastor and he has remained with 
the parish ever since. 

The latest Catholic Church inaugurated in Memphis is St. 
Thomas Church, 1912, with Rev. Father S. A. Stritch, pastor. 

Linden Street Christian Church was founded in 1846 and 
incorporated in 1850. The original members were Mr, and Mrs. 
Egbert Wooldridge, Mr. and Mrs. E. W. Caldwell, Mary Mcin- 
tosh and Ann McGuire. The lot was bought and the church was 
organized on the southeast corner of Linden and Mulberry and a 
small frame building standing on it was remodeled and made 
into a house of worship. In 1860 a brick edifice was erected, 
but not completed until after the war, and the parsonage was 
erected in 1877. 

The pastors have been Elders B. F. Hall, 1846 to 1853 ; R. 
E. Chew, to 1855 ; W. J. Barber until 1861. During the Civil 
War services were held without a pastor and after the war the 
pastors were Rev. R. A. Cook, 1864-6 ; T. W. Caskey, 1866 ; Curtis 
J. Smith, 1869; David Walk, 1870; J. M. Trible, 1879; G. W. 
Sweeney, 1882 ; J. B. Briney, 1886-9 ; J. W. Ingram, 1889-1893 ; 
J. A. Brooks, 1893-95; W. E. Ellis, 1895-97; W. H. Sheffer, 
1907-1912. 

The Mississippi Avenue Christian Church was organized in 
1891, with Reverend S. P. Benbrook, pastor. His successor in 
1893 was Rev. S. B. Moore. Mr. ]\Ioore was succeeded by Revs. 
Joseph Severns, 1895-97; L. D. Riddell in 1907, who has been 
with the church ever since. In 1909 this congregation erected 
a new church building on McLemore Avenue, when one of its 
earliest and most liberal supporters, Mr. S. C. Toof, furnished 
the greater part of the funds for this new structure. ]\Ir. Toof 
was such a strong arm of this church that his decease in 1910 
was a great loss and tho church held special memorial services 
in his honor. At this time the expressions of love and veneration 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 517 

for him were the outpourings of many individuals who expressed 
^'Hititudt. for his generous support ar.J uns"l'i.N'i wi-rk and sev- 
eral for personal help received from him. 

The Third Christian Church was inaugurated in 1899, with 
Rev. J. E. Willis, pastor. His successors have been Revs. E. L. 
Crystal, 1900-1902; J. E. Gorsuch, 1904-11; S. F. Fowler, 1912. 

Decatur Street Christian Church, established 1910, has had 
two efficient ministers, Rev. H. F. Cook, 1910, and R. H. Love, 
1911-12. 

The latest church of this denomination is Harhert Avenue 
Church, established in 1912 with Rev. W. S. Long, pastor. 

In 1855 an effort was made to establish a Lutheran Church 
in this city and Rev. W. Fick, of New Orleans, came to Memphis 
and ministered at intervals to the worshipers of that faith. Fol- 
lowing him a student of the Concordia Theological Seminary of 
St. Louis, Paul Byer, was placed in charge. The German Evan- 
gelical Lutheran Trinity Church was organized in July, 1855, 
and N. Freeh, F. Steinkuhl, H. Glindamp and W. Ringwald were 
chosen elders. Mr. Byer was installed as pastor and continued 
until 1858, when Rev. G. M. Gotsch became pastor. He died in 
1876 and Rev. H. Lieck was selected, who resigned in 1879, The 
congregation was supplied for awhile by Rev. E. S. Obermeyer 
of Little Rock, when Rev. Theodore Benson was elected pastor, 
but died in 1881. A Theological student named Caspar Dorseh, 
from St. Louis, then ministered to the congregation, assisted by 
Mr. Obermeyer, and in September, 1881, Rev. I. G. Pflantz 
became pastor. He was succeeded in 1886 by Wm. Dau. The 
congregation purchased a house and lot on Main Street in 1856, 
at number 210, but in 1874 they obtained a lot and built the first 
story of the present church on Washington Avenue near Orleans. 
Doctor Dau stayed with the church a number of years. In 1899 
his successor was Rev. L. Buchheimer and he in turn was suc- 
ceeded by Rev. J. Broders in 1903, serving until 1908, when 
Rev. M. J. Brueggemann was elected pastor and is still with the 
congregation. 

The Lutheran Church of The Redeemer, was first noted in 
1910, with Reverend Theodore Stiegemeyer as pastor. Doctor 
Stiegemeyer is still serving this congregation. 



518 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

The First Congregational Church or Stranger's Church was 
organized in 1863. Up to 1864 the congregation worshipped at 
Odd Fellow's Hall and in the Greenlaw Block and other places, 
but in the latter year purchased the site on Union Street on 
which a building was erected dedicated June 20, 1865 by Rev. 
T. E. Bliss, the first pastor. In 1868 Mr. Bliss was succeeded 
by Rev. A. E. Baldwin and in turn in 1875 by W. D. Millard, 
who was pastor for two years. Church services were suspended 
during the yellow fever epidemics and in 1881 Rev. N. M. Long 
held evening services and soon after reorganized the church, its 
name being changed to Stranger's Church. The church was 
much enlarged in 1882 and Mr. Long was called as its pastor, 
since which time he has remained in the service. 

Congregational Church of the Children of Israel, the first 
Jewish congregation was established in 1854 under a charter. 
The incorporators were J. I. Andrews, Moses Lemmons, Jno. 
Walker, D. Levy, Julius Sandac, T. Folz, M. Hamberger, N. 
Bloom, Joseph Strauss and Simon Bernach. Being aided by a 
donation from Judah Touro, of New Orleans, a lot on Second 
Street was purchased, but not used and in February, 1858 an 
edifice at the corner of Main and Exchange Streets, the old 
Farmer's & Merchants Bank Building was rented and dedicated 
by Rev. Dr. Wise. Later the lot was bought and the house used 
as a Synagogue until 1884, when the present Jewish Temple, was 
built on Poplar Street at a cost of $50,000. The building was 
dedicated by Revs. J. M. Wise, H. Senneshein, and Max Samfield. 
On July 6, 1860, Rev. S. Tuska was elected Rabbi of the congre- 
gation, but died on December 30, 1870, and was succeeded by 
Rev. M. Samfield, who still presides as Rabbi of the congrega- 
tion. 

Baron Hirsch Temple is another Jewish Church on the cor- 
ner of Washington Avenue and Fourth Street. The pastors of 
this church have been Rabbis M. Springer, 1898-1906; Mayero- 
vitz, 1907; M. Springer, 1909; Aaron Schwartz, 1910; Benjamin 
Filbish, 1911-12. 

First Church of Christ, Scientist, was organized in Memphis 
September 11, 1892, in the Randolph Building. The old Cen- 
tral Methodist Church on Union Avenue was purchased in 1907 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 519 

and services were held there from April until December of that 
year, when the church building burned. Services were then 
held in the Woman's Building until December, 1908, when the 
congregation moved to the crypt of their new building comer 
Dunlap Street and Monroe Avenue, where services have been 
held ever since. The church building is now being completed. 

The first readers of this church were Mrs. Rosa T. Shepherd, 
First Reader and Mrs. Hattie Caldwell, Second Reader. They 
were succeeded in 1903 by Miss Mamie Gafford, First Reader, 
and Mr. J. W. Stotts, Second. Miss Gafford resigned in March, 
1905, when Mr. Stotts became First Reader and Mrs. Julia H. 
Edwards, Second. In 1906 Mr. Edward S. Stapleton became 
First Reader and Mrs. Ida G. Tate, Second. They were suc- 
ceeded in 1909 by Mr. John M. Dean, First Reader, and Miss 
Mary V. Little, Second. They led for the allotted three years, 
when, January 1, 1912, Mr. Charles N. Churchill, became First 
Reader and Mrs. Emma Galloway Craft, Second. 

The Associate Reform Presbyterian Church is situated on 
South Pauline Street, corner Eastmoreland Avenue. Its pastor 
is Rev. W. B. Lindsey. 

The Hehrew-Christian Church is on Poplar Avenue. Rev. 
Joseph Rosenthal is its pastor, or missionary, as he is called. 

The Pentacostal Holiness Chuvch is on the corner of Latham 
and Simpson Avenues. Rev. B. S. Todd is its pastor. 

Faith Mission Church is on Seventh Street and its services 
are conducted by W. P. Day, pastor. 

Church of God, is on Pennsylvania Avenue. R. B. Burl is 
its pastor. 

The Seventh Day Adventists hold services at the corner of 
Dunlap Street and Greenlaw Avenue. The pastor is W. R. 
Burrow. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
The Bench and Bar 

NO CHAPTER in the history of Memphis surpasses in inter- 
est or in the splendor of achievement of the actors the 
story of the Bench and Bar of Shelby County. The 
founding of the great city was conceived by Judge John 
Overton, a noted jurist of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, and 
its charter and all the details of all its early career were care- 
fully and studiously prepared by this able lawyer, one of the 
most brilliant lights that our state has produced. Many great 
lawyers have sought the "City by the Great River," since 
the days of Judge Overton and shed the luster of their fame 
not only upon the place of their chosen residence but, in num- 
erous instances, upon the whole United States; and some of 
these jurists and lawyers have stamped their name and fame 
indelibly upon the history of our country. 

In this little chapter it will be endeavored to select the 
salient points in the lives of these able jurists and lawyers 
without entering into tedious detail. Beginning with the 
courts we find that the Legislature of Tennessee on November 
24, 1819, six months after the laying off of young Memphis, 
passed an act establishing a new county to be called Shelby, 
in honor of Governor Isaac Shelby of Kentucky, one of the 
heroes of the Battle of King's Mountain in the Revolutionary 
War and who had, in the preceding year negotiated with the 
Chickasaw Indians in company with General Jackson, the pur- 
chase of all their lands in West Tennessee and Western Ken- 
tucky, lying between the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers 
and north of the line of the Mississippi Territory. This same 
Act established a tribunal called the Court of Pleas and Quar- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 521 

ter Sessions. The court was composed of a chairman and 
four commissioned justices of the peace. William Irvine was 
its first chairman and the other members were Anderson B. 
Carr, Marcus B. Winchester, Thomas D. Carter and Benjamin 
Willis. 

It had four terms a year and a general jurisdiction over 
county affairs in both criminal and civil cases, the intermediate 
appellate court being the Circuit Court of Humphreys County. 
As this court was established as a tribunal to be held upon the 
lower Chickasaw Bluff there was some question as to the 
proper situs for its organization, and this question was settled 
practically and literally by organizing the court in the open 
air on the top of the bluffs where Memphis now stands, the 
great forest trees being the only covering from the elements. 
This court was removed after the January term of 1827 to the 
new county seat at Raleigh, where it continued as the Court of 
Pleas and Quarter Sessions until the April term of 1836, when 
its title became simply the County Court of Shelby County. 
This court still exists, but there has been a wonderful change 
in its surroundings since its organization under the trees on 
the edge of the bluff, and its final evolution and present 
ensconceraent in probably the most beautiful courtroom in the 
Southern States, under the roof of the new Shelby County 
Courthouse. 

On July 22, 1836, the Legislature passed an Act creating 
a county judge for this county, to be elected by the people. 
This office continued with numerous legislative changes until 
the establishment of the present probate court of Shelby Coun- 
ty by the Legislative Acts of 1870 and the Amendatory Act of 
1881. 

The first circuit court in Shelby County was held in 1827, 
this county being then in the Eighth Judicial Circuit, presided 
over by Judge Joshua Haskell. Shelby County also received 
its first special court in 1846, called the Commercial and Crim- 
inal Court, the presiding judge being Honorable E. W. M. King, 
who was succeeded in 1850 by Judge J. C. Humphreys. Many 
changes have been wrought in the Circuit and other Shelby 
County courts by Legislative enactment since 1827. 



522 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

By the Act of 1853 it was provided that the voters of Shelby 
County should elect a judge of the Common Law and Chancery 
Court of the City of Memphis, and that the voters of Shelby, 
Fayette, Tipton and Hardeman Counties should elect a judge 
for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, constituted of those counties, 
and that the voters of the Fifth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth 
districts of Shelby County, in which Memphis and Fort Picker- 
ing were situated, should elect a judge of the Criminal Court 
of Memphis, and also an Attorney-general of said Court. 

For some time there were no Chancery courts in Tennes- 
see, the first Legislature which convened on the 8th of March 
1796, establishing only a Supreme Court of Law and Equity. 
By enactment of 1822, Chapter 13, it was directed that one 
of the judges of the Supreme Court of Errors and Appeals 
should, at stated times, hold a court of equity at several places 
named in the Act. This Act was repealed in 1827 by Chapter 
79, the State being divided into two Chancery divisions, called 
the Eastern and Western, presided over by two Chancellors 
elected by the joint ballot of the General Assembly. In 1835 
the chancellors were increased to three and Fayette and Shelby 
Counties were constituted the Seventh Chancery District of 
the Western Division, the court being held at Somerville, Fay- 
ette County. On December 15, 1845, Shelby and Tipton Coun- 
ties were constituted a new chancery district with the court at 
Memphis and Honorable Alexander McCampbell, Chancellor 
of the Western District, was its first presiding officer. The 
first case entered on the docket of this court May 26, 1846, was 
styled James 0. Hutchins vs. R. K. Eskridge, and its purpose 
was to enjoin the collection of a note for the hire of a slave. The 
counsel for complainants were Delafield, Massej^ and P. G. Gaines 
while Sylvester Bailey appeared for the defendant. There were 
one hundred and five cases docketed in this court in 1846. 

Shelby County was at first, as above stated, in the Eighth 
Judicial Circuit, presided over by Judge Joshua Haskell as far 
back as 1827, when Memphis was incorporated, but after that 
date the courts were held at the county site at Raleigh. Judge 
Haskell was succeeded by Honorable Valentine D. Barry, a 
native of Ireland and who was the first circuit judge to reside 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 523 

in Shelby County. After Barry came the Honorable Perry W. 
Humphries, Judge William B. Turley, L. M. Bramlett, W. C. 
Dunlap and William R. Harris, who were fine types of old- 
school, thoroughly trained lawyers and upright judges. 

Of all of these circuit judges the most striking character 
perhaps, was Hon. Valentine D. Barry. He was not only strik- 
ing in his personal appearance and upon the bench but also in 
his private life. He was an earnest, accurate and laborious 
Judicial officer, highly cultivated in all branches of literature 
and a man far ahead of his age and time in his southwestern 
home. As is the case with most men whose minds approach 
genius he had great capacity for detail and his office and library 
were model arrangements for carrying on the duties of his 
position, being noticeable for the neatness, order and arrange- 
ment of the judicial resources in the nature of books, briefs 
and digests collected by him for his own personal convenience. 
Judge Barry was also an eloquent speaker and a most attrac- 
tive conversationalist. He was the fast friend of the new 
beginners at the bar, patiently instructing and training them 
and always ready to aid the youngsters in their perplexing 
legal troubles. 

Another of these early and bright judges on the circuit 
bench was Hon. Wm. B. Turley, who was a Virginian, but first 
licensed to practice law at Clarksville, Tenn. He was a judge 
of this judicial circuit for several years and then became jus- 
tice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee in 1836 and continued 
in that position until 1850. He declined re-election and volun- 
tarily sought and obtained the judgeship of the Common Law 
and Chancery Court of Memphis and held that office until his 
tragic death from an accident some years later. He was a 
colleague on the Supreme Court bench of those great judges 
Green and Reese. 

Another early judge on the Circuit bench was Hon. W. C. 
Dunlap, who was a native of Knoxville and born in 1798. In 
early manhood he was prominent in political affairs, having 
served fourteen years in the State Legislature and several terms 
in Congress, where he showed high ability. He was later 
circuit judge for about ten years. He might have worn the 



524 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

title of the "Equable Judge," sitting as he always did, with 
perfect composure and unruffled temper throughout the most 
trying wrangles at the bar before him but, never losing his 
grip on the case and steering it, as a skilled pilot would his 
craft, through all breakers into the still harbor of certainty 
and law. This amiable justice was of course loved by every 
attorney and practitioner and especially by the younger mem- 
bers of the bar to whom he was in their practice a delight 
Judge Dunlap died November 17, 1872 in this county. 

Hon, Wm. R. Harris was a North Carolinian, born in 
Montgomery County in 1802. When a boy he earned his means 
for attending school by working on the farm during the sum- 
mer and studied law at Lawrenceburg, Tenn., beginning his 
practice at Paris in Henry County. Coming to Memphis in 
1851 he succeeded by appointment Hon. Wm. B. Turley and 
became judge of the Commercial and Criminal Court of Mem- 
phis until 1854. He was then made, after an interval, judge of 
the Supreme Court by appointment and subsequently by elec- 
tion. His splendid career was tragically cut short on the 13th 
of June, 1858 as the result of an accident, the explosion of the 
Steamer Pennsylvania a short distance below Memphis and 
he died a w^eek later, on the 20th of June. His record was one 
indicating great ability and strength of character. 

Another judicial officer of striking personality and unusual 
ability was Hon. E. W. ]\1. King who was appointed the first 
judge of the newly established Commercial and Criminal Court 
in 1846, and held the position until 1850. Judge King was of 
a fiery temperament, resentful and sometimes rash, but exceed- 
ingly tender and gentle with those who were fortunate enough 
to be loved by him. His enforcement of the criminal laws, 
while entirely just, was rigorous in the extreme and this trait 
characterized his prosecution of criminals while attorney-gen- 
eral before he became judge. 

The successor of Judge King on the Commercial and Crim- 
inal bench was an Alabamian named B. F. McKiernan who had 
come to Memphis in early life. Judge McKiernan was of gent- 
ler mould than Judge King but died no great while after being 
made judge of this court. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 525 

Honorable John C. Humphries was his successor. He had 
been splendidly trained for the bar and was well equipped for 
the duties of the bench. Judge Humphries was noted for his 
splendid personal appearance and attracted much attention 
because of that fact. His career was one of honor and purity 
and his death occurred at Somerville in 1868. 

There were no courts while Memphis was a garrison town 
during the War Between the States. Honorable W. G. Reeves 
was Circuit Judge from the opening of the courts in 1865 
until the court was abolished December, 1869. 

The Common Law and Chancery Court of Memphis were 
separated by the Act of 1865 and 1866, Chapter 32, and made 
separate jurisdictions. 

Among the judges of the Law Court of Memphis following 
the separation, was Judge Thomas G. Smith, who occupied 
the bench in 1866 and 1867. Judge Smith was far beyond the 
average in ability and was very popular both with the people 
of Memphis and with the bar, James 0. Pierce, of Wisconsin, 
became judge of the Law Court in 1868, but occupied the 
bench only a short time and was succeeded by Captain H. S. 
Lee in 1869. Both the last named gentlemen had been officers 
in the United States Army during the Civil War and remained 
after the conclusion of peace between the sections. On the 
4th day of December, 1869, by an act of the Legislature, the 
Circuit Court of Shelby County, as then existing, the Law 
Court of Memphis, the Municipal Court of Memphis, the Chan- 
cery Court of Memphis and the Criminal Court of Memphis, 
were abolished. By Section 3 of said Act there were created 
two circuit courts and one criminal court in said county and 
two chancery courts, the said courts to be known as the First 
and Second Circuit Courts of Shelby County, the Criminal 
Court of Shelby County and the First and Second Chancery 
Courts of Shelby County. 

By Section 4 of the Act, the Circuit Court absorbed the civil 
business of the old circuit court, the law court and the munici- 
pal court. The dockets and business of the Circuit Court going 
to the new First Circuit Court ; the records of the law court going 
to the Second Circuit Court and the records of the Municipal 



526 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Court going to the First and Second Circuit Courts, while 
the criminal business of the circuit and municipal courts were 
passed to the new Criminal Court. 

With the reorganization of the State Courts under the 
new Constitution in 1870 the carpet-bag government disap- 
peared and the people of the state came into their own again. 
New judges were elected in all the courts. Honorable Car- 
rick W. Heiskell was elected Judge of the First Circuit Court 
and Honorable Irving Halsey, of the Second Circuit Court. 

Judge Heiskell had been a distinguished Confederate 
soldier, commanding the Nineteenth Tennessee Regiment in 
Strahl's Brigade, Army of Tennessee, and after the close of 
the War Between the States, was compelled to leave East 
Tennessee and come as a refugee to Memphis in 1866. He had 
been admitted to the bar at Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1857. 

These two judges, men of great vigor and learned in the 
law, continued to occupy the benches of their respective courts, 
Judge Heiskell until the end of his term in 1878 and Judge 
Halsey until his court was abolished in 1875. Judge Heiskell 
was succeeded by Judge J. 0. Pierce former judge of the Law 
Court in 1878, who served his full term until 1886, when he was 
in turn succeeded by Hon. L. H. Estes, judge-elect who occu- 
pied the bench for two terms until 1902. In that year the 
present incumbent J, P. Young, succeeded to the Circuit Court 
bench and still occupies the same. 

In 1905 three divisions, known as 2, 3 and 4, were added 
to the Circuit Court to meet the requirements of the enormous 
increase in business, which had come with the growth of the 
city, and as judges of these courts Hon. Walter Malone was 
appointed to Division 2, Hon. A. B. Pittman to Division 3 and 
Hon. W. H. Laughlin to Division 4, All of the four judges of 
the several divisions were reelected in 1910. 

After the Civil War, Hon. Wm. M. Smith, who had been 
a Unionist during the great strife but was greatly loved by 
the people of Memphis, was made chancellor in 1866 and con- 
tinued so until the reorganization of the courts in 1870, when 
Hon. R. J. ]\Iorgan was elected chancellor of the First Chancery 
Court and Hon. Wm. L. Scott of the Second Chancery Court. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 527 

Judge Morgan served out his term on the bench and was suc- 
ceeded by lion. Charles Kortrecht in 1878, who died of yellow 
fever soon after his election and was succeeded on the bench 
of the First Chancery Court in the fall of 1878 by Hon. W. W. 
McDowell, by appointment, and this Chancellor was soon after 
elected by the people and served the remainder of the term 
in this division. In 1886 Hon. H. T. Ellett, a former Supreme 
Judge of Mississippi and one of the ablest of modern jurists, 
was made chancellor at a great personal sacrifice to himself 
and took charge of the First Chancery Court. Judge Ellett 
presided with the most distinguished success until 1889, when 
he died suddenly ia Court Square while on the rostrum receiv- 
ing President Cleveland on behalf of the citizens of Memphis. 
Judge Ellett was succeeded in that court by his law part- 
ner Hon. B. M. Estes, one of the ablest lawyers at the Memphis 
bar, who held the position until September 15, 1891, when he 
resigned and Honorable W. D. Beard was appointed Chancellor 
in his place. Judge Beard continued Chancellor until 1893, 
when he resigned and was soon after elected to the Supreme Bench 
of Tennessee, where he became Chief Justice. Upon Judge 
Beard's resignation Honorable John L. T. Sneed, a former jus- 
tice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, and a learned and dis- 
tinguished man, was appointed Chancellor and was elected to 
that position by the people in August, 1894. In 1900 Judge 
Sneed resigned and Honorable F. H. Ileiskell, the present 
incumbent, was appointed to succeed him and he was reelected 
in 1902 and also in 1910. 

In the Second Division of the Chancery Court, Honorable 
W. L. Scott resigned in 1871 and was succeeded by Honorable 
Edwin M. Yerger. During the last illness of Judge Yerger, 
Honorable Sam P. Walker was appointed Chancellor in August, 
1872 and reelected in August, 1874. Chancellor Walker 
resigned July 10, 1875 to accept the appointment of City Attor- 
ney and Honorable F. D. Stockton was appointed July 15, 1875 
and continued on the bench until the Second Chancery Court 
was abolished in October of that year. 

In 1895 the Chancery Court was, by Act of the Legislature, 
divided into two parts, known as Part One and Part Two. Hon- 



528 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

orable Sterling Pierson was appointed Chancellor of Part Two 
of this Court and continued to preside until October 15, 1898, 
when he resigned. Honorable Lee Thornton was appointed 
October 17, 1898 and held the position until Part Two was 
abolished by the Legislature, and retired May 8, 1899. 

By an Act passed April 3, 1909, Part Two of this Court 
was reestablished and Honorable H. D. Minor was appointed 
Chancellor on May 6, 1909. He resigned August 8, 1910 and 
on August 4, Honorable Francis Fentress was elected Chancel- 
lor by the people and was inducted into office on September 1, 
1910, and still holds the position. 

Honorable William Hunter was first judge of the Criminal 
Court of Shelby County after the Civil "War, from 1867 until 
December, 1869, when the existing Criminal Court was abolished 
and the new Criminal Court established as an auxiliary of the 
Circuit Court and for a brief period Honorable A. T. Hender- 
son presided over that tribunal. After the Constitution of 1870 
Honorable John R. Flippin was elected Criminal Judge in 
August of that year. Judge Flippin was a man of great 
strength of mind and character and his accession to the crim- 
inal bench marked an epoch in the judicial history of the 
county and city. There were no slipshod methods of practice 
and few loopholes left by which criminals could escape from 
the meshes of the law. To him the criminal law meant justice, 
firm, even-handed justice, acquitting honorably when the juries 
found there was no crime and punishing unsparingly when 
they found the culprit guilty. Immediately the Criminal Court 
became one of great importance under the guidance of Judge 
Flippin and his vigorous young attorney-general, Luke E. 
Wright, and the ablest members of the bar, were constantly 
found engaged in the numerous causes and state prosecutions, 
sometimes of distinguished citizens, which were being carried 
on there. Men like Duncan K. McRae, Emerson Ethridge, 
George Gantt, T. W. Brown, L. B. Horrigan, E. M. Yerger 
and John Sale, great lawyers as they were, engaged in battles 
royal with the vigorous young attorney-general at this bar 
during Judge Flippin 's term and the state and county were 
vastly the gainers by the workings of this court at that period. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 529 

Judge Flippin held office until December, 1875 when, hav- 
ing resigned to become mayor of Memphis, on December 28, 
of the same year Honorable John D. Adams was appointed 
judge and held the position until Honorable Thomas H. Log- 
wood, elected August 3, 1876, assumed the bench on September 
1, 1877. Judge Logwood held office until 1878 when in August, 
Honorable P. T. Scruggs was elected in the summer but died 
before assuming the bench and Honorable J. E. R. Ray was 
appointed in his place. Upon the reopening of the court, after 
the yellow fever of that fall, Judge Ray himself died in the 
summer of 1879 of yellow fever and in the fall the Honorable 
L. B. Horrigan was appointed to succeed him. 

Judge Horrigan was a master of the science of criminal 
law and a stern, unyielding man who made life a burden to 
evil doers of all grades. He invariably inflicted the maximum 
penalty for pistol-carrying, his judgment in such cases being 
eleven months and twenty-nine days confinement in the County 
Workhouse. Judge Horrigan 's career was of great benefit to 
the people of Memphis and a constant source of terror to 
malefactors of all sorts. 

Judge Horrigan died in 1883, and Hon. J. M. Greer was 
appointed to succeed him. Judge Greer served until September, 
1884, when Honorable Addison H. Douglass was elected and 
assumed the bench. Judge Douglass served out the constitu- 
tional term to September 1, 1886 and was succeeded by Judge 
Julius J. DuBose, who was impeached before the Senate of 
the State Legislature in 1893, for malfeasance in office and 
was deposed and Honorable T. M. Scruggs appointed to his 
place. Judge Scruggs declined to stand for reelection in 1894, 
and Honorable Lunsford P. Cooper was elected and served for 
the remainder of the constitutional term until 1902, when Hon- 
orable John T. Moss was elected and served his full term of 
eight years. 

On April 11, 1907, Division Two was added to the Crim- 
inal Court of Shelby County with a limited jurisdiction and 
Honorable J. W. Palmer was appointed judge of said Division 
Two, but on May 1, 1909 the jurisdiction was made coordinate. 

At the election held August, 1910, Honorable Jesse Edging- 



530 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

ton was elected judge of Division One and Hon. James W. 
Palmer of Division Two, of said court and these gentlemen are 
still in these offices. 

The Probate Court of Shelby County was established July 
7, 1870 and Honorable J. E. R. Ray was made judge, serving 
until 1878, when Honorable T. D. Eldridge was elected judge. 
Pie served until 1886, when Honorable J. S. Galloway was 
elected judge and he still holds this position. In 1896 the 
Second Circuit Court of Shelby County was established, having 
limited jurisdiction and Honorable J. S. Galloway was made 
judge ex officio of said court and remained so until 1905, when 
the Second Circuit Court was abolished. 

After the Civil War a court had been established in Mem- 
phis, called the Municipal Court, which was presided over by 
George W. Waldron, who continued in office until 1869, when 
Green P. Foute became judge. This court was abolished 
December 4, 1869 and its business transferred to the Circuit 
Court, as above stated. 

Passing now to the bar of Shelby County, which has ever 
been one of the most notable in the Southwest, we find that 
the first attorneys to be admitted to practice on the third day 
after its organization. May 1, 1820, by the Court of Pleas and 
Quartersessions of Shelby County, were John Montgomery and 
John P. Perkins and these were the first lawyers to be recog- 
nized by the court in West Tennessee. Little is known of 
these gentlemen or their careers except that Perkins was at 
once elected County Solicitor. About the same time a promi- 
nent attorney of Mobile, Alabama, named Robert McAlpine, 
removed to Memphis. Remaining here for some years he 
finally returned to Mobile. While here he took a very promi- 
nent, perhaps a leading part in the litigation of that day. 
Other attorneys who were admitted to the bar about the same 
time were David W. Massey, John Brown, Wm. Stoddard and 
Robert Hughes. Nothing further is known of the professional 
careers of these gentlemen. P. T. Gaines early came to Mem- 
phis. He was a lawyer and Democrat bitterly opposed to 
"whigery" as then called, was a man of striking presence 
and more devoted to politics than to the practice of law. Being 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 531 

rarely ready for trial at the terms of court, he was dubbed 
by the young attorneys whose cases were blocked, "old Con- 
tinuendo." Although described as a genial gentleman, he had 
at least one serious short-coming, he lived and died a bachelor. 

Among the most distinguished lawyers of that day how- 
ever, was Wm. T. Brown who came from Middle Tennessee to 
Memphis and formed a law partnership with Frederick P. 
Stanton. Judge Brown was a tall, dark-complected, black- 
eyed man with nervous temperament and rapid, vigorous habit 
of speech. 

Contemporary with him was Granville D. Swarcy, who 
came from Somerville, Tennessee. Possessing great power as a 
lawyer, with much ready wit, he made a dangerous rival to 
Judge Wm. T. Brown in the practice of that day. 

James Wickersham was a product of the North and was 
not only a good lawyer but a very thrifty man as well. It is 
narrated of him by Judge L. B. McFarland that he got indebted 
to his landlord for board but soon after securing what he called 
an "admiralty case," an attachment on a flatboat, he made a 
good sized fee and bought some of his landlord's depreciated 
notes with which he paid his debt. He came to Memphis in 
1844, Spencer Jarnagin swooped down from East Tennessee 
on Memphis in 1847. He was an able lawyer of lazy habit, 
fonder of fishing than of practicing law and caused much 
trouble by his dilatory tactics. Of a different type was Col. 
James B. Thornton of Virginia who came to Memphis in the 
same year. Colonel Thornton was a man of many attainments in 
literature and of splendid education and much reading. Several 
books v/ere written by him, one of which, Thornton on Con- 
veyauciEg, was made a text-book at the Cambridge Law School 
of Massachusetts and passed through several editions. Colonel 
Thornton joined the Confederate service at the beginning of 
the Civil War, and served throughout. Colonel Thornton was 
the father of Dr. G. B. Thornton of Memphis and by a later 
marriage of Judge Lee Thornton of this city, both of his sons 
still residing here. 

About this same period there were a number of successful 
Iciwyers in active practice in the courts of Memphis, some of 



532 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

whom became very distinguished at the bar in later years. 
From 1845 to 1850 these learned men saw in the growing young 
city a great opportunity and flocked here in considerable 
numbers, winning both fame and money in their energetic 
practice. Among those who came to Memphis during the 
period named, were Leven H. Coe, Walter Coleman, Thos, J. 
Turley, Wm. K. Poston, David M. Currin, Edwin M. Yerger, 
John L. T. Sneed, John Sale and Henry G. Smith. What a 
galaxy of ability and power was represented by that group! 
L. H. Coe, the aggressive lawyer and active partisan; Walter 
Coleman, of splendid presence, and an eloquent orator; Thos. 
J. Turley, the partner of Archibald Wright and father of the 
late distinguished Senator Thos. B. Turley; Wm. K. Poston, 
wise, prudent and strong at the bar, who gave three sons to 
the law to become distinguished at the bar after their father's 
death, in W. K. Poston, Jr., David H. Poston and Frank P. 
Poston; David M. Currin, from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, able 
lawyer and politician and Confederate Congressman, who died 
during the Civil War; Henry G. Smith, one of the most pro- 
found of our attorneys and councellors, who came from Con- 
necticut to North Carolina and thence to Memphis, and who 
ultimately served a term by appointment in 1868 on the 
Supreme Bench, and lived a long, useful and laborous life of 
33 years in the city of his choice. Judge Henry G. Smith was 
more than a great lawyer; he was possessed of the keenest wit 
and while sometimes wrapped in the most painful abstraction 
when struggling with a great thought, he would arouse to 
humor and abandon in the battle at the bar and while striking 
his heaviest blows and inflicting the most dangerous wound 
upon his opponent's case, would so entertain by his versatility 
and scintillating humor as to retain the good will even at the 
time of the man whom he was overwhelming with his clear 
logic and flood of eloquence. Away from the bar he was the 
most genial of companions, his polished manner and graceful 
courtesy winning one unconsciously to him. Judge Smith died 
suddenly, after intense argument to a meeting of citizens upon 
a matter of great civic importance, and Memphis in his death 
lost one of her greatest lawyers and ablest citizens. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 533 

Edwin M. Yerger, one of the brilliant men of the early 
forties, at this time shed his rays by the light of his genius 
upon all the courtrooms of this city. Mr. Yerger was what was 
called a natural lawyer, which only means that, with a won- 
derfully retentive mind, he had so mastered the principles of 
law and of equity jurisprudence in his early years that his 
keen powers of reasoning enabled him to break away from 
precedents and citations of cases and to declare ex cathedra 
the correct rule of law or equity in any case which he was 
arguing. This was done in language eloquent and forceful, and 
which seemed to crystalize the thoughts of other astute think- 
ers into scintillating diamonds of pure reason for use in that 
particular case. Mr. Yerger was appointed Chancellor to suc- 
ceed Honorable W. L. Scott, who had resigned in 1871, but he 
himself died in August, 1872, after a brief but able career on 
the bench. 

John Sale was the law partner and inseperable companion 
of Judge Yerger, and during their copartnership they were 
rarely seen apart on the street. Mr, Sale came to Memphis in 
1846 and became attorney-general for four years in the Crim- 
inal Court. He was a great criminal lawyer. In eloquence and 
forensic ability he was the equal of Judge Yerger, but did not 
possess the latter 's wonderful reasoning powers. As an advo- 
cate before the jury he was overwhelming, and when the logic 
of the case was not with him his withering sarcasm and ability 
for lingual castigation often won for him where other men 
would have failed. Colonel Sale would not hesitate where he 
had the least opening, to attack the character of the opposing 
litigant and so trenchant was he in the use of this weapon that 
Attorney-general Luke E. Wright on one occasion turned to 
the jury and arraigned Colonel Sale at the close of his argu- 
ment by declaring him to be "the great and original dirt-dauber 
of creation." Of this unique character Colonel M. C. Galloway, 
the brilliant newspaper editor, wrote at his death in November, 
1872: "John F. Sale was great in his frivolities, great in his 
burlesque, great in his humor, great in his common sense, the 
great lawyer, the great orator, the great black-guard, the great 



534 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

companion, the great friend, the great worshipper of ladies, 
the great spendthrift. In nothing was he little." 

Of the old Memphis bar in the later fifties there were 
W, D. Beard, afterwards Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; 
B. M. Estes, in later life the great Chancellor; R. J. Morgan, 
also a Chancellor after the Civil War; J. M. Gregory, L. D. 
McKisick, B. A. Massey, Charles Kortrecht, Henry Craft, Luke 
W. Finlay, Howell Jackson and Archibald Wright. Immedi- 
ately after the close of the Civil War there came to Memphis 
other able and ofttimes brilliant lawyers who, combining with 
the survivors of the fifties, became a bar in the latter sixties, 
which has probably never been surpassed or even equalled by 
that of any single city in the whole land. Among these last 
named gentlemen who came in 1865 or 1866 from other sections 
of Tennessee were Colonel George Gantt, Thomas G. Smith, M. 
R. Hill, W. H. Stephens and Thomas R. Smith from West and 
Middle Tennessee, Landon C. Haynes and Joseph B. and C. W. 
Heiskell and S. R. Gammon from East Tennessee, Duncan K. 
McRae and R. M. Heath from North Carolina, James Phelan, 
Judge Henry T. Ellett, J. W. Clapp and Colonel Wm. Harris 
from Mississippi ; Judge Tom W. Brown from Kentucky ; 
Charles W. Adams, W. M. Randolph and General Albert Pike, 
from Arkansas and a little earlier, W. Y. C. Humes, of Virginia, 
but who had lived briefly in East Tennessee. 

What a school of law this great galaxy afforded for the 
young law student and practitioner of that day ! Sketches 
cannot be afforded of each of these great lawyers, nearly all 
of them cast in the same mold, and giants as they were in 
forensic debate. 

One of the greatest lawyers which Memphis ever knew 
was Colonel George Gantt. With an intellect sparkling and 
scintillating like a diamond, hard study had wrought out of 
him a master of the science of law, and his versatility and love 
of the law caused him to master every branch of it. He was 
equally at home in a great struggle for a human life before 
the able criminal courts of that day ; amid the quietly flowing 
waters of equity practice ; in the din and heat of the battles 
royal for preeminence and success in the contests in the courts 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 535 

of law, or in the humble office of some justice of the peace, 
illuminating with his genius the intricate question of obscure 
common law practice, which would often cause the untrained 
magistrate to forget himself and become the active partisan of 
the keen lawyer, who had perhaps for the first time brought 
him to understand the nature of the litigations daily waged 
before him 

Extremely unlike Colonel Gantt, but a foeman worthy of 
his steel, was Judge Tom W. Brown of Kentucky, the erudite 
and classical scholar, the polished rhetorician and the extremely 
well-grounded lawyer, who richly embellished with his learn- 
ing, wit and polished language the cases tried by him in the 
courts and whose eloquence and beauty of diction made him 
famous not only at the bar but on all other occasions where 
a great mind and a highly trained orator were needed in 
public affairs. 

Another giant of that day was Judge Archibald Wright, 
the massive man and massive mind, which had at one time 
dominated the deliverances of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, 
at a period when it was strikingly great both in its makeup 
and its opinions. Judge Wright, while plodding and laborious 
in his research, at the bar resembled Vulcan, wielding his 
sledge-hammer wdth crushing effect upon his less-careful pre- 
pared antagonist. Judge Wright knew his own ability and 
while never vainglorious, exacted unsparingly of his clients 
due compensation for his labor. He was great as a judge, great 
as a man, great as a lawyer and advocate and transmitted to 
his posterity many of the elements of his own massive and 
imperious mind. 

Thomas R. Smith, originally from the State of Maine, 
though he died young and had but a brief period of develop- 
ment at the bar of Memphis between 1865 and 1872, forged 
rapidly to the front and became before his death one of the 
master minds of the great bar of Memphis of that day. He 
was a man of wonderful resource, clearness of judgment, 
quickness of perception and indomitable in attack. He was 
in almost every great case before the Memphis courts between 



536 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the close of the Civil War and his death in 1872; and his con- 
tinual successes won for him the greatest distinction. 

Landon C. Haynes was a man of winning eloquence and 
unsurpassed in the beautiful figures of speech and flowers of 
rhetoric which he lavished upon every audience. Almost every 
address was a poem, and his love of his native district in East 
Tennessee with its purple mountains, its dimpled valleys and 
above all, of the ''beautiful blue Wautauga," which he would 
manage to weave, in some way, into every speech which he 
made, caused Mr. Albert M. Stephens, one of the young law- 
yers of that day, to speak of every beautiful and flowery 
address which he heard as "Blue Wautaugaism. " 

Two other striking characters of that bar were Duncan 
K. McRae, of North Carolina and General Albert Pike of 
Arkansas. Colonel McRae was learned, logical, incisive and 
intense in every law-suit, conceding no such word as failure, 
yet striking his tremendous blows with the chivalry of a 
Bayard, and pleasantly saluting the antagonist he was about 
to overwhelm. General Albert Pike was a soldier, pioneer, 
poet, journalist, statesman and last but not least, a lawyer. In 
all of these he was great and a more striking figure or person- 
ality never arose before the bench of a court in Memphis than 
this tall, broad-shouldered man with bold, high forehead, keen 
but calm eyes and hair flowing over his shoulders, in appear- 
ance, a reincarnation of some of the great jurists of the Eliza- 
bethan period in England. General Pike was a child of nature, 
a child of the forest and a seasoned soldier, but as refined at 
the bar as any polished courtier, or any grave and dignified 
gentleman of the early American school of statesmen. He was 
iiniversally loved and universally respected. 

Judge Henry T. Ellett was still another type of the elegant 
and polished lawyer of that day and, with Judge Henry Craft, 
like himself from Mississippi, by their suave manners and beau- 
tifully expressed thoughts and above all by their unbending 
dignity and sweetness of manner were examples to all the 
younger generation of struggling, ambitious attorneys. If 
either ever lost his balance on the bench, or at the bar it escaped 
the writer's notice. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 537 

Judge J. W. Clapp and Judge Howell E. Jackson were two 
other notable figures of that day. They both took high position 
at the Memphis bar and in the affairs of the Memphis public, 
and Mr. Jackson became a Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
United States by sheer force of merit, for he was a Southerner 
of intense loyalty to his section and such men were rarely in 
favor at that time in administration circles at "Washington. 

All of these great lawyers have passed on to another world, 
leaving a memory that will ever be mellow in the minds of 
those who knew them, and a record that will be historical in 
the annals of Tennessee and Memphis. 

Of this same coterie were Judge John L. T. Sneed of the 
Supreme Bench, J. M. Gregory, T. B. Turley, R. B. Hutchinson, 
J. A. Taylor, R. D. Jordan and George B. Peters. Robert 
Hutchinson was a quiet, gentleman but one of the most thorough 
equity lawyers of his day. He was a student and writer of 
high merit and his work on carriers is a standard handbook 
and textbook in every State of the Union. 

Judge Sneed was a gentleman of the olden time, very 
tall, powerfully built, with a large head and Websterian fea- 
tures. His career was almost coextensive with Memphis, being 
one of the earliest lawyers to shed lustre upon her name and 
serving her as lawyer, soldier and jurist in a long career of 
scholarly endeavor and patient devotion to duty. 

General George B. Peters was one of the most brilliant of 
the corps of brilliant attorneys-general, who have represented 
the interests of Shelby County and of the State of Tennessee 
in her courts. 

There were yet others noted in that decade of able lawyers, 
among whom were L. D. McKisick, E. S. Hammond, for a 
quarter of a century judge of the Federal Court; General W. 
Y. C. Humes, the genial and able Charles W. Frazer, Ed Beech- 
er, Charles W. Adams, W. T. Avery, Judge E. R. Ray, George 
Phelan, William M. Smith, R. F. Looney, Judge John P. Caru- 
thers and Emerson Ethridge, who by their earnest and ambi- 
tious endeavors added to the fame of the Memphis bar. 

And then of the more recent dead we have Luke W. Fin- 
lay, brave soldier, able lawyer and good man; Judge W. D. 



538 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Beard, learned and wise and who graced the Supreme Bench 
as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court ; John R. Flippin, law- 
yer, jurist, earnest and faithful mayor of Memphis, who first 
'^ame to her relief when her interests had been wrecked ; D. E. 
Myers; Eldridge Wright, one of the most brilliant of the 
generation of lawyers who had reached middle life, when 
crushed to death in a railroad accident, and last, W. A. Percy, 
not only a lawyer of great ability, but a man of preponderating 
influence in public affairs and on whose recent grave the 
green grass has scarcely yet appeared. In these shining marks 
chosen by the angel of death, Memphis suffered irreparable 
loss when the sudden blow fell. 

Memphis still has an able, nay, a brilliant bar, embracing 
a few of the men of the later sixties and a far larger number 
of young but intellectual giants who are worthy successors in 
life and character and intellectual ability of the great men 
recorded above, and who will preserve the name and fame of her 
bar to other generations. But it is merely possible that proto- 
types will be found among them of those collossal lawyers, whose 
striking personality and individuality, and it may be added 
originality, born of the surrounding conditions and stormy 
scenes amid which they developed, shed such luster upon the 
life and story of the bar of that day. 




_- r-^ iyFff. m//.a,-,s a Bra . ."/X" 




y. CHAPTER XXIV 

Medical History of Memphis 

^^♦[♦EDICINE and surgery have undergone vast changes in 
♦JFIPI Memphis, as they have the world over, and no set of 
^^^ natural scientists have been more persistent in inves- 
tigations and changing theories than those of the medical pro- 
fession. 

When Memphis was a very small village in the early 
twenties Indian Medicine men still used their queer practices 
for relieving the sick and there is record of several white people 
who, unable to find a white physician, resorted to the help of 
their red brethren. The methods of the IMedicine men were 
carried on by incantations and invocations to the Great Spirit, 
but they also used herbs and often gave their patients very 
strenuous physical treatment. 

A writer in the Old Folks Record tells of a process the 
medicine men had of bleeding by drawing needle points, fixed 
securely in a quill up and down the patient's arms and legs. 
The desired end of "bleeding," was attained and the patient 
would lie abed for days after, unable to walk or move. For 
some ailments these physicians of the forests believed in 
blistering and this process was performed by holding hot 
embers over the patient's abdomen until the blistering was 
accomplished, it usually taking several helpers to hold the 
victim in place during the performance. 

We learn of no wh/te physician here until late in the 
twenties, when there is record of Dr. Frank Graham, an intelli- 
gent worker for health, with considerable knowledge of medi- 
cine. 

In 1827 Memphis had an epidemic of dengue, or break-bone 



540 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

fever, and in 1828 yellow fever visited the town, for the first 
time since July, 1739, when Bienville's army was attacked 
while on the way to this point from New Orleans and deci- 
mated, by what many now suppose was yellow fever. 

When Doctor Graham came he found many new conditions 
to meet and used his skill in the young town with varying 
success. 

In 1834 two other physicians came to the growing village, 
Drs. M. P. Sappington and Wyatt Christian, and in 1835 Dr. 
John R. Frayser was added to the list. Doctor Frayser was 
a good physician and commenced that year a residence and 
practice in Memphis which lasted through a long life, in which 
time he witnessed the vicissitudes of Memphis from those early 
days until he died an old man, near the close of the century. 
He also witnessed the marvelous growth in his profession and 
in 1888 Mr. Vedder said of him, "he still lives, and around 
him clusters much of the medical history of our city." 

Other physicians followed and one. Dr. H. R. Robards, was 
a surgeon of no mean ability and became the surgeon not only 
of Memphis, but of the surrounding country. 

In the early days Memphis was not a clean city, as has been 
shown in the general history, and in the thirties Doctor Fray- 
ser and his brother physicians thought a board of health should 
be organized, that sanitation and other provisions for the health 
of the town might be instituted, and August 6, 1838, the first 
board of health was formed, composed of Doctors Wyatt Chris- 
tian, M. P. Sappington, John R. Frayser, DeWitt, Maybry, 
Lewis Shanks, and Hickman.* This board did not gain 

the influence they desired in order to enforce cleanliness and 
make other hygienic demands of the community, but they 
accomplished some good and worked together for the common 
benefit. 

Asiatic cholera reached Memphis from New Orleans in 
January, 1849 and caused much alarm, but the disease was 
confined chiefly to the flatboat neighborhood and to people of 
dissipated habits and enervated condition.! In other places 

*Vdder. tKeating. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 541 

visited by this plague that year results were more serious than 
in Memphis. 

In the Railroad Record of 1854, these lines appeared con- 
cerning Memphis health: "Its high position has secured its 
health so far that neither cholera nor yellow fever have visited 
it in the severe forms in which they have prevailed in almost 
all the Southern cities. This immunity is likely to continue, 
for it lies on both high and dry ground, and has purer and 
better air than any other place in that region. 

But the sanitary condition of the town was poor and Dr. 
A. P. Merrill, a physician and citizen of high rank, who has 
also appeared in these pages as an educator, in response to a 
discussion between the Board of Aldermen and the Board of 
Health carried on in the newspaper in the fifties, advocated a 
sewer system. In this discussion Doctors Watkin and Booth 
reported : 

"Memphis has for the past two years been alarmingly 
sickly, and the sickness has been alarmingly fatal. No sort 
of explanation can weaken the force of these facts. They 
have become notorious, and if allowed to become her perma- 
nent characteristics will brood over the city like an eternal 
incubus, destroying its pleasantness, arresting its growth and 
paralyzing its commercial prosperity." 

The coming of Doctor Merrill brought another physician 
of high standing and impetus to the profession generally. Dr. 
William V. Taylor, took up his abode here in 1850. He was 
followed at intervals by his four sons, all physicians and all 
standing for the best in their profession. Still other physicians 
came and soon Memphis had doctors of all the schools existing 
at that time. 

As early as 1846 it was thought that Memphis could sup- 
port a medical college of her own, and the Memphis Medical 
College was instituted and proved very successful. Doctor 
Shanks was elected dean, and all the teachers were men well 
versed in the profession, some being physicians of wide repute. 
In 1853 Dr. John Millington was made professor of chemistry, 
and he was ranked one of the best chemists of the world, hav- 
ing had broad experience both in America and England. 



542 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Another able teacher in this institution was Dr. H. V. Wooten, 
recognized far and near as an authority on the principles and 
practice of medicine, which was his branch of work in the 
college. Doctor Merrill was appointed professor of materia 
medica and Mr. Vedder says of him that he "has had few 
superiors, before or since his time." Dr. C. T. Quintard taught 
physiology and anatomy and gave promise of being one of the 
first in this branch of doctor's work, but he abandoned medi- 
cine and went into the ministry. Dr. Arthur K. Taylor then 
taught anatomy with excellent results until he moved to Hot 
Springs, Arkansas. Dr. Daniel F. Wright, one of the best 
workers for the State Board of Health, was also a teacher in 
this college. 

Colonel Keating mentions a closing term of the Memphis 
Medical College in February, 1852 "under circumstances of 
exceptional eclat, Dr. Charles T. Quintard delivering the vale- 
dictory address." 

During the following summer this college was consolidated 
with the Memphis Institute and opened in the fall under 
splendid auspices. Doctor Merrill giving the introductory lec- 
ture and Congressman F. P. Stanton delivering an able address. 
The Botanical School of Medicine was very popular in the 
early half of the last century and several physicians of that 
practice came to Memphis. The system grew in favor and 
about the time the Memphis Medical College was established 
the Botanico-Medical College was opened here and became 
popular. 

Dr. M. Gabbert of this school gave his life in 1855, during 
the yellow fever epidemic that came to Memphis that year. 
He had been very successful as a practitioner and had grown to 
be much beloved by many Memphis families who relied on his 
skill and sympathy during their trials of sickness. Doctors T. 
C. Gayle and G. W. Morrow were also successful followers of 
this school and had extensive practice. 

Homeopathy came to Memphis in 1856 with Doctor Edmonds 
who won the confidence of many people and gained a large 
practice. Homeopathy became popular and numerous good 
physicians of this school followed Doctor Edmonds at inter- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 543 

vals to Memphis. They, with physicians of other schools, bat- 
tled with the yellow fever of 1855 as well as later epidemics. 

The best physicians in Memphis, being broad-minded men, 
did not allow the different theories of practice to interfere with 
the general professional harmony, and when the Memphis Med- 
ical Society was formed, physicians of all schools were admitted, 
and we find the principles of this society laid down by Doctor 
Merrill in an address given in 1857. He stated that all repu- 
table physicians could belong to the Memphis Medical Society, 
but no one who practiced charlatanry would be recognized. 
One of the articles of the constitution of this organization read : 

"All graduates of respectable schools of medicine, of good 
moral character, and willing to adopt the Code of Ethics of 
the American Medical Association, and scrupulously to adhere 
to its teachings, may become members of this society. ' ' 

Also, "No individual shall be considered eligible to mem- 
bership in this society, who divides responsibility with a known 
empiric, or associates with any such in consultation, or prac- 
tices with nostrums or secret patent medicines, or who exposes, 
vends or advertises such medicines either in his own name or 
that of another." 

Doctor Merrill thought that in the true physician it was 
narrow and unscientific to inhere inviolably to one class of 
materials for cures, and the members of this society were urged 
to keep no good discovery secret, but to share with the broth- 
erhood every new good that could in any way aid the pro- 
fession. 

He thought that the Board of Health should be a substan- 
tial organization of the city ; to attend to sanitation and make 
the city a healthful place of residence, and an attractive place 
which would encourage and invite immigrants of a solid and 
beneficial sort. 

Of the physicians here at that time Doctor Merrill said : 

"Memphis contains, as compared with other cities, its 
full proportion of medical talent and learning. Fatal diseases 
are not more fatal in the hands of physicians here, than are 
the same diseases in all our principal cities. Those terrible 
epidemic scourges of modern times, cholera and yellow fever, 



544 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

have been treated even more successfully in Memphis than 
in most other places. * * * * Our surgery compares favorably 
with New York and Philadelphia." 

Physicians not mentioned above, practicing in Memphis 
in 1860, are given by Mr. 0. F. Vedder, as follows : Drs. R. R. 
Ball, C. C. Berry, Field & Berry, B. F. C. Brooks, R. W. Creigh- 
ton, E. W. Davis, P. E. Dickinson, Abner Dayton, James Hall, 
Zeno Harris, C. Spiegel, J. M. Sledge, G. H. Smith, A. Thumel, 
William J. Tuck, J. S. Williams, F. M. E. Faulkner, J. Fowlkes, 
E. P. Frains, M. B. Frierson, Frederick Hartz, Hopson & Mar- 
tin, R. P. Jones, T. Keefe, J. M. Lane, F. H. Leroy, J. W. Mad- 
dox, E. R. Marlett, Thomas Peyton, J. S. Pearson, Milton San- 
ders, James Young, W. T. Bailey, D. M. DeBose, C. S. Fenner, 
S. & S. T. Gilbert, W. H. Hawkins, D. Herndon, J. R. Hill, H. 
J. Holmes, J. J. Hooks, J. T. Marable, W. D. Tucker, A. B. 
Washington, R. T. Webb, J. S. White, W. W. Wright, Charles 
McCormick, J. D. Martin,W. H. Pickett, R. H. Redmond, A. 
A. Rice, Shanks & Cobb, L. D. Shelton, Snider & McGinnis and 
John Wilson. 

During the sixties the medical profession kept pace with 
other Memphis progress and the two schools of Homeopathy 
and Allopathy, directly opposite in their theories, grew power- 
ful, but rivalry sprang up and as time advanced the schools 
became antagonistic. 

Some of the most noted of both these schools during the 
years succeeding the War Between the States were : Drs. John 
R. Frayser, R. W. Mitchell, S. P. Green, Emmett Woodward, 

A. L. Kimbro, Wm. Hewett, C. F. Snyder, John R. Pitman, H. 
P. Hobson, E. A. White, W. E. Rogers, Josiah S. White, Frank 
Rice, George R. Grant, Arthur K. Taylor, R. C. Malone, W. T. 
Irwin, R. F. Brown, S. H. Brown, E. Miles Willett, Alexander 
Erskine, G. B. Thornton, D. D. Saunders, R. W. Mitchell, Paul 
Otey, W. C. Cavanaugh, J. M. Keller, J. H. Nuttall, Richard 
H. Taylor, R. B. Maury, W. B. Avant, H. W. Purnell, J. Joseph 
Williams, J. Murray Rogers, Robert P. Bateman, Joseph Lynch, 

B. M. Lebby. 

All medical organizations had been abandoned during the 
Civil War and most of the physicians joined the army. After 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 545 

the war people of all professions and callings in the South were 
heart-siek and disorganized, but by degrees order came again 
and the Memphis doctors started afresh to pursue their pro- 
fessions and to be interested in the growth and prosperity of 
Memphis. Besides many of the old resident physicians a num- 
ber of new ones took up their abode here and while secular feel- 
ing and distrust lasted for several years after the close of the 
war, few physicians allowed personalities or feelings of hatred 
to interfere with the work of helping humanity in which they 
were engaged. 

Organization again did its part in bringing the M. D.'s 
together, helped them in their work and by degrees the rav- 
ages of war and their effects were forgotten, or at least put 
in the background, and new life was infused into Memphis. 

But in 1873 another check came in the yellow fever epi- 
demic and many brave physicians who stayed to fight the fever 
and to learn to handle it gave their lives as toll, while many 
others had severe attacks of the disease. 

Doctor Thornton gave the list of deaths that year in Mem- 
phis as 1,244 out of 4,204 cases, as the nearest estimate, but 
he stated that many other cases were not recorded or were 
called something else. 1873 was a trying year but one soon 
followed that eclipsed both it and the War Between the States 
in the devastation it wrought. 

The epidemics of 1878-9 have already been so fully treated 
in the general history of this volume that they will not again 
be dwelt on here. Suffice it to say that the doctors of both 
schools were tried in the fire and proved pure metal. Some 
gave their lives, most of them were attacked by the plague 
and many lived to continue serving Memphis and their fellow 
men. Dr. G. W. Overall is said to have been the only physician 
who escaped the fever altogether. Dr. G. B. Thornton, in 
charge of the City Hospital, who had had the disease in 1873 
nearly lost his life from it in 1878. Dr. John H. Erskine, health 
officer of Memphis, was cut down in the midst of official duty, 
and Colonel Keating says of him, that "He was an inspiration 
to his friends, an example of constancy, steadiness and unlSag- 
ging zeal. To the sick room he brought all these qualities, sup- 



546 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

plemented by an unusual experience, an inexhaustible stock of 
knowledge, and a sympathy as deep as the sad occasion." 

Would that an eulogy might be here given every brave 
physician, and nurse, who gave his or her life during that awful 
time. 

Among other physicians who came here and volunteered 
services during the 1878 epidemic was Dr. R. H. Tate, the first 
negro professional who had ever come to Memphis. His ser- 
vices were accepted by the Howard Association and he worked 
faithfully among his OM'n people until himself overtaken by 
the fever. He died September 21, with the crown of martyr- 
dom, so many white physicians and nurses bore that fatal year. 

We have already dwelt upon how the city was impov- 
erished in 1880, but physicians as a rule are not people to be 
daunted and our Memphis fraternity was one of the best. 
Most of the surviving doctors took up the reins with new vim 
and new men of the profession came. Among these were three 
negro doctors from the Meharry Medical College of Nashville, 
all reputable men and a benefit to their people morally as well 
as physically. These were Doctors T. C. Cottrell, A. S. J. 
Burehett and Y. S. Moore. 

Many of the physicians devoted themselves to specialties as 
this mode of practice grew in favor, and infirmaries were estab- 
lished for the treatment of special diseases. An important one of 
these was established by Dr. W. E. Rogers for surgical eases, 
assisted by his son, Dr. W. B. Rogers. After the death of the 
senior member of this firm the son, together with Doctors B. G. 
Henning and H. L. Williford, founded a better equipped surgi- 
cal infirmary on Madison Avenue. 

Soon after this Doctors Mitchell and Maury opened an 
infirmary for women at Third and Court Streets, which 
was soon outgrown and these enterprising men in 1886 erected 
a four-story building costing $40,000, with baths, operating 
rooms, laboratory and every convenience for such an insti- 
tution. Dr. R. B. Maury and Dr. R. W. Mitchell and his 
son, Dr. E. D. Mitchell conducted this infirmary, and later 
Doctor Maury's son. Doctor Maury came into the partnership. 
In 1903 the firm name was changed to Maury & EUett, when 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 547 

improvements and additions were made to the institution and 
recently still further improvements have been instituted. 

Dr. T. P. Crofford opened another infirmary of this sort 
on Main Street which in its turn had to be enlarged. In 1891 
this infirmary was largely extended, a building costing $75,000 
being erected on Third Street. This institution was operated 
by Doctors Crofford, Rogers & Henning, three physicians 
standing very high in the profession. 

Dr. G. W. Overall, believing strongly in electricity as an 
agent in curing disease, opened a sanitarium in 1888, where 
electrical appliances were used. Later E. D. Peete entered 
into partnership with Doctor Overall. 

Other infirmaries, sanitariums, sanitoriums and hospitals 
have operated at intervals, all performing their share of bene- 
fit to suffering humanity. 

Of public institutions the City Hospital on Madison Avenue 
stands first, but it has been so fully treated in the general 
history, as part of the growth of the city, that mention is 
sufficient here. Its present superintendent is Mr. Edward Now- 
land, Jr., and its corps of physicians and nurses is one of the 
finest in the country. The hospital now has three wings 
besides the central building and contains 250 beds. There is 
a training school for nurses and thirty nurses are at present 
in the hospital. Seven finished nurses graduated in the class 
of 1912. These devoted women have become an important 
factor in nursing serious cases of disease and physicians rely 
upon them to a very great extent for success in treating their 
patients. As with the doctors, nurses of this time must earn 
their diplomas by high efficiency. The head nurse of the City 
Hospital is Miss Frances 0. Spencer, who also has charge of 
the training school. 

The City Hospital has eight internes, seven of whom serve 
in the hospital and one in the police station. Something of the 
amount of work done in this institution can be imagined when 
it is known that 2,300 patients have been received and cared 
for since January 1, 1912. The present trustees are Messrs. 
R. 0. Johnson, chairman; M. M. Bosworth, St. Elmo Newton, 



548 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

C. R. Mason, superintendent; S. T. Wharton, assistant-super- 
intendent; and J. F. Ward, bookkeeper. 

The Baptist Memorial Hospital opened July 20, 1912, 
under excellent auspices. Reverend Thomas S. Potts is general 
superintendent of the hospital and there is a good corps of 
workers under his direction, as he himself says, one of the 
best to be found. Mr. A. Q. Gillespie is assistant superintend- 
ent and Miss Florence Bishop, superintendent of nurses and 
principal of the training school for nurses. Miss Dorothy 
Hughes is surgical nurse and both she and Miss Bishop are 
nurses of experience and recognized efficiency. 

The City Dispensary, 222 North Front Street, is a very 
useful branch of medical work in Memphis. 

St. Joseph's Hospital, situated on Johnson Avenue, is in 
charge of the Sisters of St. Francis, Sister Alexia being the 
Superior. Although a Catholic institution patients from all 
or no denominations are cared for alike, religious considera- 
tions not controlling them in sickness. This hospital, like the 
City Hospital, has pay and free patients, according as the 
patient is able or not to pay for his treatment. This institu- 
tion can accommodate 150 patients. 

The Lucy Brinkley Hospital, 855 Union Avenue, in charge 
of Miss Lavania Dunnavant, is quite an old institution, but has 
only occupied its splendid new quarters since June, 1907. The 
Board of Directors is made up of Mrs. C. F. Farnsworth, pres- 
ident; Mrs. Grant, secretary; Mrs. M. L. Selden, treasurer; 
and the Staff comprises Doctors W. W. Taylor, president; 
Moore Moore, secretary and treasurer; Ed. Mitchell, J. A. 
Crisler, W. S. Anderson, M. B. Herman and E. M. Holder. 

The Presbyterian Home Hospital has for one of its chief 
aims the desire to throw around the patients as much of home 
atmosphere as possible in an institution of this sort. This 
hospital is situated on Alabama Street and is in charge of 
Doctors G. a Buford and James A. Moss. The institution was 
founded in 1903 by Doctors Buford, Thomas and Morrow, 
Doctor Buford later buying the whole interest. Later still he 
took Doctor Moss as a partner and now these two physicians 
have charge of the work. Miss Buford is head nurse. 




£r^. M/S.a. VK/Aa,r,s ^Br^.J^OT 




A^^ ^ 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 549 

The Home for Incurables, 1467 E. MeLemore, is a beautiful 
place where the aim is to make the last days of their patients 
as pleasant as possible. Mr. Re H. Vance is president of this 
institution and Mrs. Olive Marshall, matron. 

There is a Tuberculosis Hospital on Riverside Boulevard, 
at the corner of Rhode Island Avenue, whose name designates 
its purpose. The city and county are now jointly preparing 
to build a public tuberculosis hospital on a large scale. 

On West California Avenue, overlooking the river, is the 
United States Marine Hospital, where river patients are made 
comfortable and carefully tended. Dr. P. C. Kalloch is the 
surgeon in command. 

At 698 Williams Avenue is the Negro Baptist Hospital, in 
charge of Dr. C. A. Terrell, where patients of this race receive 
good attention from well-trained physicians and nurses. 

Another good Negro institution is the Hairston Hospital 
at 628 South Orleans Street. 

Not least of Memphis institutions for the sick is the Pest 
House, where contagious diseases are treated and tended. This 
hospital is in charge of Mr. W. F. Kimbrough. 

Memphis has some excellent medical schools, which have 
many graduates every year. The Memphis Hospital Medical 
College is the oldest of those now in existence. In 1876 Doctor 
William E. Rogers thought Memphis should have a medical 
school and consulted with some of his fellow physicians on the 
subject. Dr. G. B. Henning and Dr. W. B. Rogers agreed that 
such a school had become a Memphis need and by 1878 con- 
siderable interest had been aroused. A lot was purchased on 
Union Street opposite the old City Hospital, now Forrest Park. 
This school was ready for work by the fall of 1878, but the 
yellow fever epidemic prevented its being opened. The same 
fate served it the following autumn but in September, 1880, 
the college was thrown open to students and has ever since 
been successfully operated. It has several times been added to 
and at present a large, efficient establishment is maintained at 
718 Union Avenue. This last building was erected in 1902 
at a cost of $100,000. 

In 1886 the college lengthened its course of two years to 



550 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

three years, and again in 1900 to four years. This school grew 
steadily and by the school year of 1900-1901, had 750 students, 
being at that time the second largest medical school in the 
United States. Last year the school had 380 matriculates and 
from its beginning, 2,625 graduates have left its training. 
Many of these men now occupy high positions in the profession all 
over the Union, some being employed in the United States 
army and navy. 

The advantages for study and practice of the students here 
are excellent and before a student can enter the college he 
must be of good moral character, at least eighteen years of age 
and a graduate of a high school. 

Professors Emeritus of the college are Dr. Alexander 
Erskine and Dr. A. G. Sinclair and many other members of 
the faculty have had long experience in the institution. The 
present faculty comprises Drs. W. B. Rogers, B. G. Henning, 
B. F. Turner, Elmer E. Francis, J. L. Minor, F. D. Smythe, 
Frank A. Jones, J. L. Andrews, J. B. McElroy, J. J. Huddles- 
ton, J. A. Crisler and J. L. McGehee. 

The Board of Directors are : Col. Wm. II. Carroll, presi- 
dent ; W. B. Rogers, secretary and treasurer ; A. C. Treadwell, 
Capt. J. W. Dillard, W. B. Galbreath, P. P. VanVleet, W. H. 
Bates, R. T. Cooper, Bolton Smith and Doctors W. S. Smith, 
B. F. Ward, Zach Biggs and B. G. Henning. 

Another successful medical school is the one connected 
with the University of Tennessee, which college is in a splendid 
new building at 879 Madison Avenue. This College of Physi- 
cians and Surgeons, includes a School of Pharmacy and a 
College of Dentistry. 

The location of this college is admirable for its purposes, 
having the City Hospital opposite, the splendid new Baptist 
Memorial Hospital within a stone's throw of its doors and the 
new Methodist Hospital to be soon erected 150 feet south, and 
still another institution to be erected in this neighborhood this 
summer is a 50-bed emergency hospital. "With these four hos- 
pitals surrounding the school the students will have clinical 
and other medical advantages surpassing the neighborhood of 
any other college in America, it is claimed. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 551 

The students here are eligible for eight positions as internes 
at the City Hospital, house-surgeon and assistant-house-sur- 
geon at St. Joseph's Hospital, assistant physician to the County 
Hospital and six internes at the Baptist Memorial Hospital. 
The faculty is a most excellent one, with Dr. Brown Ayres, 
president; Dr. E. C. Ellett, dean; and Mr. E. F. Turner, regis- 
trar. Dr. Heber Jones is Dean Emeritus and also professor of 
clinical medicine. The other members of the faculty are 
Doctors E. M. Holder, M. Goltman, G. R. Livermore, A. R. 
Jacobs, John M. Maury, Richmond McKinney, G. G. Buford, 
Marcus Haase, R. S. Toombs, Louis Leroy, Wm. Krauss, W. H. 
Pistole, P. W. Toombs, H. T. Brooks, W. C. Campbell, E. C. 
Mitchell, E. D. Watkins, Robert Fagin, 0. S. Warr and Robert 
Mann. 

In order that they might work together for the common 
good the dentists of Memphis have an organization called the 
Memphis Dental Society. It is the object of this society to 
bring about courtesy and cooperation among the dentists of 
Memphis and, to quote from their constitution, "to agitate 
and discuss all new questions, both theoretical and practical, 
in the science and art of dentistry, that we may always be 
in touch with those who are leaders of our profession, thereby 
enabling us more readily to recognize that which is for the best 
interest of our patient, and more able to meet the obligations 
which honor and integrity demand of us." 

In 1909 the College of Dental Surgery was organized in 
Memphis by Doctors Justin D. Towner and M. Goltman, as a 
department of the University of Memphis. The aim of this 
college is high and its standard chosen from the regulations 
prescribed by the National Association of Dental Faculties. 
The course requires three years of study and practice. The 
first faculty was made up of Doctors Justin D. Towner, dean; 
David M. Cattell, registrar; M. Goltman, Wm. E. Lundy, C. 
J. Washington, J. A. Gardner, J. L. Mewbom, C. H. Taylor, E. 
Edgar West, J. A. Crisler, Louis Leroy, Percy W. Toombs, E. 
D. Watkins, W. H. Pistole and E. C. Mitchell. 

In 1911 this college consolidated with the University of 
Tennessee Dental Department of Nashville, operated as the 



552 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

University of Tennessee Department of Dentistry at Memphis. 
The present dean is Joseph A. Gardner, and the registrar is 
David M. Cattell. The present faculty comprises, Doctors H. 
A. Holder, J. A. Gardner, Justin D. Towner, D. M. Cattell, 
M. Goltman, Wm. E. Lundy, C. J. Washington, Elbert W. 
Taylor, Eugene A. Johnson, Louis Leroy, Edwin D. Watkins, 
E. C. Mitchell, Robert Mann, Robert Fagin, Raymond Mano- 
gue, J. L. Mewborn, L. J. McRae, L. M. Matthews, H. C. Rush- 
ing and R. E. Baldwin. This college, as well as all other 
departments of the University of Tennessee, is co-educational. 

This department occupies the historic building at 177 
Union Avenue, occupied by the Y. M. C. A. before moving into 
their elegant new home, and the building has been remodeled 
for its new purpose. 

The James Sanitorium is a well known institution devoted 
to the curing of alcoholic and drug addictions. This institu- 
tion was beautifully situated at Raleigh Springs in what was 
formerly the Raleigh Springs Hotel, until it was burned and 
completely demolished a few months ago. Now the sanitorium 
is located at 692 Alabama Avenue in pleasant and attractive 
grounds and buildings. The president of this institution is 
Charles B. James. 

Doctors Petty and Wallace also conduct a sanitarium for 
the treatment of unfortunate people habituated to drugs or 
alcoholic drinks, at 958 South Fourth Street. Dr. Petty is the 
medical director of this institution. 



A 



CHAPTER XXV 

Societies and Clubs 



^i^j^ANY social gatherings were enjoyed by the pioneers and 
*f ■ I sometimes these were conducted periodically, but the 
^^^ first society organizations in Memphis of which we 
have record, were fraternal. The first of these was a lodge 
organization by Masons in 1836-1837, known as Memphis Lodge 
Number 91. This lodge grew and became a strong organiza- 
tion in the community. Their first recorded lodge rooms were 
on the west side of Second Street, corner of the alley, between 
Adams and "Washington Streets. Washington Chapter Num- 
ber 18 was formed later and met in the same rooms. Both 
these lodges surrendered their charters about 1851 but before 
they discontinued many other Masonic lodges had been born 
and they continued in their work, ever increasing in numbers. 
The Masons have a handsome building on the corner 
of Second Street and Madison Avenue, covering 80 by 148 
feet. This building was erected in the seventies, being much 
hindered in its progress by epidemics and financial depres- 
sions that followed. In August, 1870, the stockholders of the 
Masonic Temple Association elected officers to purchase a site 
for the temple. These officers were H. H. Higbee, president; 
A. J. Wheeler, secretary; T. R. Farnsworth, treasurer; and 
the directors were John Pettigrew, John Lent, C. B. Church 
and George Mellersh. 

These men purchased the lot corner of Second and Madi- 
son, and on June 24, 1873, the cornerstone was laid with much 
ceremony, and on April 6, 1880, the Masonic Temple was finally 
dedicated, since which time it has held an important place in 
Memphis for lodge-rooms, offices, studios, etc. The first six 



554 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

years of its use the first floor was used as the post office and, 
upon its removal, served as store accommodation. 

There are numerous IMasonic lodges in Memphis at present 
and the order has ever held a dignified place among secret 
organizations. 

Another fraternal order whose benefits have been felt since 
the early history of Memphis is the Independent Order of Odd 
Fellows, which was organized here on January 30, 1843, with 
0. E. Wilcox, Harlan L. Leaf, James M. Howard, Abel B. 
Shaw and John Y. Bayliss as charter members. This first 
lodge was called Memphis Lodge Number 6 and two years 
after its establishment another lodge, "Chickasaw Lodge Num- 
ber 8," was organized with six charter members, — William 
K. Poston, Thomas S. Brown, William Badgley, William F. 
Davis, James M. Howard and D. S. Wilder. 

This order, like that of Masonry, grew rapidly and spread 
its influence around. Many of the members of this order, as 
stated in the general history, were among the tried and sacri- 
ficed of the epidemics and after those scourges many people 
who had been left destitute were again given a start in life 
by the Odd Fellows. In 1873 the call of this order for funds 
brought from sister lodges all over the Union $30,000 in 
excess of the expenses incurred during the epidemic. This 
surplus money Avas used for building an addition to the Leath 
Orphan Asylum, besides supplying the needs of many widows 
and children of Odd Fellows left destitute. 

1878-1879 also found many of these men at their self- 
appointed posts of duty and after each epidemic their help 
was extended to the destitute. 

The Odd Fellows have a beautiful building on North Court 
Avenue, in which the different lodges of the order meet. 

The Maccabees is a beneficiary order of women, organized 
in 1893 in Memphis, a society for "truth, love, fraternity, pro- 
gression and benevolence." This society's emblem, a beehive, 
is significant of thoughts of industry and elevation. 

The German Benevolent Society was organized in 1855 
and continued its operations through all the mutations of war, 
pestilence and scarcity of money. This organization has paid 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 555 

many thousands of dollars in benefits to members and has done 
much work outside its membership. 

The "Memphis Gruetli Verein" is a Swiss beneficiary 
order established in 1855. The war and fever weakened its 
ranks but after these disasters were over it took new life and 
grew prosperous again. 

A Scotch organization, St. Andrew's Society, was char- 
tered in 1866. Its membership is composed of Scotchmen, 
their sons and grandsons. All their meetings are solely for 
business except one a year, — the birthday of St. Andrew, when 
social, literary and musical entertainments are held. 

The "Societe Francaise de Secours Mutuels," was organ- 
ized in 1855, but not incorporated until ten years later. Its 
incorporators were John Pelegrin, Felix Leclerc, Francois 
Lavigne, F. Faquin and Pierre Deputy. After one of the 
epidemics its membership was reduced to six, but it afterward 
resuscitated. 

The "Sociata di Unione e Fratellanza Italiana" was incor- 
porated in 1870 by Italian citizens for social and helpful pur- 
poses. The secretary of this order is F. T. Cuner. 

Other nationalities have their representations also in ben- 
evolent societies, as nearly all nationalities of the earth are 
represented in Memphis. 

The Knights of Honor was established in 1873 and it was 
the first organization giving death benefits to families of the 
members at their decease. Its membership grew even more 
rapidly than the other relief societies, made up largely from 
both Masons and Odd Fellows. The first lodge in Memphis 
was Memphis Lodge Number 196, w^hich was established in 
1875, with the following gentlemen as charter members : Wil- 
liam R. Hodges, Lucien B. Hatch, Thomas J. Barchus, John C. 
Scronee, J. Harvey Mathes, E. H. Martin, S. 0. Nelson, Jr., 
John A. Holt, John W. Ward, P. R. Cousins, E. J. Carson, J. 
P. Young, Jerome Baxter, James S. Wilkins, and Joseph E. 
Russell. Its first officers : L. B. Hatch, P. D. ; J. Harvey 
Mathis, D. ; John Preston Young, V. D. ; Dr. W. R. Hodges, A. 
D. ; Thomas J. Barchus, Rep. ; Joseph E. Russell, I. Rep. ; John 
League, treasurer. 



556 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

The first severe test of this lodge came in 1878, after 
which epidemic so many of its members had died that $385,000 
was required to fulfil its obligations but they were all met. 

Many lodges of this order have been established since and 
all have been faithful sponsors of their trusts. 

On March 23, 1878, an order called the ''Knights and 
Ladies of Honor, ' ' was formed, in which both men and women 
carried policies for their beneficiaries. There were sixty-one 
charter members to this lodge and the first officers were : Phil 
Maurer, P. P. ; Jacob Braun, P. ; Henrietta Saupe, V. P. ; Max 
Herman, secretary ; J. R. Kleiner, F., secretary ; L. Ottenhei- 
mer, treasurer. 

In 1878 the lodge lost five members and many members 
of families. At their next appointment of officers Clara Unver- 
zagt was elected P. P. ; G. W. Lippald, P. ; Rose Lippold, V. P. ; 
William Souhr, secretary; Fred Siedel, treasurer. By that time 
there were 223 members. Since then the lodges and mem- 
bership have increased and the order is a strong one. 

Equity Lodge Number 20, of the Ancient Order of United 
Workmen, was organized June 8, 1877, with fifty-four charter 
members. The first officers were D. F. Goodyear, P. M. W. ; 
S. S. Garrett, M. W. ; S. C. DePass, F. ; Joseph E. Russell, 0. ; 
D. G. Reahard, recorder; N. L. Avery, financier; Ad. Storm, 
receiver. 

Tennessee Lodge Number 5, of this order was organized 
in 1872, with twenty members. The first officers were J, E. 
Russell, C. C. ; W. K. French, V. C. ; H. C. Bigelow, R. S. ; E. 
R. Jack, F. S. The object of this society was to "disseminate 
the great principles of friendship, charity and benevolence," 
and was open to all sects and political parties, men's private 
opinions having nothing to do, the order claimed, with the gen- 
eral brotherhood of the world. It also has an endowment 
fund. The lodges of this order increased rapidly. 

As Catholics were not allowed to belong to secret organi- 
zations and many of them wanted the privilege of providing 
an endowment for their families, an order was formed in the 
church called the "Catholic Knights of America." Five per 
centum of the benefit fund is used to form a sinking fund. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 557 

The first officers were Reverend Father Francis Jansend, Bis- 
hop of Natchez, S. S. D. ; Honorable James David Coleman, 
S. S. P. ; S. 'Rourke, S. V. P. ; John Barr, Lebanon, Kentucky, 
S. S. ; J. O'Brien, Chattanooga, Tennessee, S. T. ; E. Miles Wil- 
lett, M. D., Memphis, Tennessee, S. M. E. The Supreme Trus- 
tees were : J. J. Duffy, John H. Zwarts, M. D., and B. C. 
Eveslage, chairman of the sinking fund commissioners. 

There are numerous branches of this Religious-Fraternity 
order in Memphis and they do a great work. 

The Ancient Order of Hibernians, which was organized 
in 1885, is a beneficiary society for Irish people, instrumental 
in doing much good for its members. 

The Knights of Innisfail was organized in 1873 and char- 
tered in 1878. It is an Irish organization of brotherhood with 
the double object of encouraging feelings of "fraternity, tem- 
perance and respectability" amongst its members and reliev- 
ing misfortune wherever they can. The early officers were 
Anthony "Walsh, president; M. T. Garvin, vice-president; Jere- 
miah Sullivan, secretary ; and P. J. Kelly, treasurer. 

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks was insti- 
tuted in 1884. This order originated among actors but the 
membership soon extended to men of all professions and voca- 
tions. While it is a benevolent society, its social advantages 
appeal to many of the members and the order has grown to 
be a great power. In 1904 the Memphis lodge erected a modern 
building on Jefferson Avenue, a beautifully fitted-up club- 
house with parlors, library, dining-room, etc. The officers are : 
George Haszinger, Jr., Exalted Ruler; J. D. Cella, secretary 
and E. B. Sullivan, treasurer ; and the trustees are : William 
H. Dean, chairman; P. Harry Kelly, Matt Monaghan, D. F. 
Balton and John C. Reilly. 

There are many charitable institutions in Memphis, each 
and all doing good work and ever tending toward making our 
city one of charity, justice and equalization. 

First of these comes the Associated Charities, with head- 
quarters in the new Police Building. This organization, under 
the name of United Charities, was organized November 15, 
1893. The first year of their work 1600 persons living in 



558 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Memphis were relieved and the work has grown to enormous 
proportions since then. This association has a wide field, which 
is very well known, and its organized work is well managed. 
The president of the Associated Charities Board is R. 0. John- 
son; the secretary, Reverend P. A. Pugh; treasurer, John M. 
Tuther; chairman of the financial committee, June H. Rudisill; 
and the general manager, James P. Kranz. The directors are 
Mrs. Ben Goodman, Mrs. J. M. McCormack, Dr. Lilian M. 
Johnson, Rabbi W. H. Fineshriber, Reverend T. W. Lewis, B. G. 
Alexander, F. S. Elgin, J. V. Rush and P. H. Kelly. 

In 1860 Jewish women organized the ''Hebrew Ladies' 
Benevolent Association," and much charitable work has been 
done by the members of this association ever since. Their 
meetings are held in the Poplar Avenue Temple. 

In 1868 the United Hebrew Relief Association was organ- 
ized. The membership of this society is large and each mem- 
ber makes his voluntary contribution yearly. This association 
relieves indigent Jews to the amount of thousands of dollars 
every year in their quiet, unobtrusive way. The present offi- 
cers are Reverend Max Samfield, president; Samuel Slager, 
vice-president ; H. Bluthenthal, secretary. 

In 1875 the Womans Christian Association was organized 
in Memphis and did noteworthy work from the beginning, 
although the association was not chartered until 1883. The 
object of these women was to help unfortunate women and 
to prevent neglected children from being led into evil. Their 
work is widespread and the thousands of dollars contributed 
every year to the association have saved many women from 
lives of degradation, bettered the lives of little children and 
helped respectable young women to obtain positions and to 
live protected from snares that so often beset the paths of 
inexperienced young people seeking a place in the work-a-day 
world. The present officers of this association are Mrs. M. C. 
Reder, president and Mrs. Maria McElroy, general secretary. 

April 26, 1883, the Young Men's Christian Association 
was chartered in Memphis and grew rapidly in popularity and 
strength. Its object was to reach all the young men possible 
and to hold out incentives to them to be upright and to grow 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 559 

mentally, morally and physically. Rooms were secured in 
which a parlor, library, gymnasium and auditorium were 
fitted up. In five years the organization had outgrown its 
quarters, having gained a membership of three hundred. The 
officers at that time were R. G. Craig, president; L. H. Estes, 
vice-president; J. II. Thompson, secretary; George S. Fox, 
treasurer; and William D. Laumaster, general secretary. 
The association continued to expand, outgrowing more and 
more commodious apartments, until its final move into its own 
elegant club building on Madison Avenue, one of the hand- 
somest and most convenient Y. M, C. A. buildings in the world. 
The present officers are E. B. LeMaster, president; B. G. Alex- 
ander, general secretary and G. C. McCoUough, secretary. 
The membership in Memphis at present is over three thousand. 

The Young Men's Hebrew Association is an organization 
for young Hebrew men similar to that of the Y. M. C. A. It 
was organized in 1881 with only a few members, for the pur- 
pose of creating sociability among young Hebrew men and 
encouraging them in moral and literary improvement. After 
a while of struggling to keep together and several misfortunes, 
one of which was the burning of their well-equipped rooms 
and property, not protected by insurance, the club became a 
power and has remained so, at present having nearly 500 mem- 
bers. The first president was Dave Gensburger. 

In November, 1910, the Association took up its head- 
quarters and club home in the Y. M. H. A. — Rex Building, cor- 
ner of Madison Avenue and Dunlap Street, a building fitted 
up commodiously and elegantly for both these associations, — 
the one an intellectual and general improvement club and the 
other a social organization. 

The present officers are, Otto Metzer, president; Jacob H. 
Foltz, vice-president; Emil C. Rawitser, secretary; Edw. E. 
Becker (reelected for the twenty-ninth term), treasurer; Israel 
H. Peres, librarian; Emil Kahn, auditor. The Board of Con- 
trol is composed of Charles J. Haase, Henry D. Bauer, Elias 
Gates, Dr. Harry S. Wolff, Dave Sternberg, Clarence N. 
Frohlich. 

The Young Men's Institute was organized July 19, 1891 



560 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

by twenty-six young Catholic men whose object was to form 
a club for social intercourse and intellectual advancement. 
George D. Hook was made president and much of the club's 
early popularity was due to Mr. Hook's unselfish efforts in its 
behalf. The society gave entertainments to its friends which 
were instructive as well as enjoyable and the work among 
themselves was always helpful. It has grown until there are 
now 100 members, who have rooms at 198 Washington Avenue. 
The present officers are John E. Colbert, president; P. M. 
Canale, 1st vice-president ; R. J. Regan, 2nd vice-president ; H. 
W. Neff, recording secretary; B. C. Cunningham, correspond- 
ing secretary ; E. M. James, marshal ; E. F. Longinotti, general 
secretary. The Board of Directors are G. W. Dichtel, chair- 
man ; T. J. Noonan and E. P. Colbert. 

The Poor and Insane Asylum is six miles northeast of the 
city on the Old Raleigh road and serves the city and county 
as such institutions are wont to do. Its labors are great but 
much lessened by the numerous private and church institutions 
supported for charity. Dr. J. C. Anderson is superintendent 
and physician in charge of this Asylum. 

The Girls' Friendly Society is an organization established 
by the Episcopal Church for girls, "to encourage purity of 
life, dutifulness to parents, faithfulness in work and thrift," 
according to one of the by-laws of the society. The secretary 
of the Girls' Friendly is Miss Ada Turner; the corresponding 
and recording secretary. Miss Nettie Barnwell; and the treas- 
urer, Mrs. A. Y. Scott. The Executive Board consists of Mes- 
dames Brinkley Snowden, William Somerville, J. A. Evans 
and A. Y. Scott and Misses Rostand Betts, N. Barnwell, Turner 
and Montgomery Cooper. The matron is Mrs. Donald MacGil- 
livray. The Society maintains a lodging house on North Main 
Street for its members who have no homes, and on South Main 
Street lunch and rest rooms for working women and girls. 
Good influence is thrown about the members and much done 
for their social pleasure and uplift. Evening classes are also 
conducted in which girls employed during the day are able 
to improve their minds or pursue school studies which were cut 
off by the urgency for bread-winning. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 561 

In 1840 the Shelby County Bible Society was organized 
for the purpose of distributing bibles and six years later was 
changed to the Memphis and Shelby County Bible Society. The 
organization is auxiliary to the American Bible Society and its 
work extends to all of Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. 

The Nineteenth Century Club was founded in 1890 by 
Mrs. Elise Massey Selden and two years later it was incor- 
porated. Naming the departments of its work will give an 
idea of the scope of the club's undertakings. These are art, 
civics and health, children's story hour, current topics, domes- 
tic science, education, French, history, music, literature, phil- 
anthropy and work for the blind. 

It was through the efforts of the Nineteenth Century Club 
that a matron was placed in the Police Station, that women 
prisoners might have proper attention ; that the Juvenile Court 
was first agitated and established ; that a shop and entertain- 
ment were provided for the blind and numerous other benefits, 
the value of which are felt throughout the city. The present 
Board of Directors consist of Mesdames Wharton Jones, J. H. 
"Watson, J. S. Ellis, Earl Harris, William Omberg, Battle 
Malone, A. B. Pittman, Dudley Saunders, W. B. Mitchel, Jr., 
G. M. Garvey, Percy Finlay and Miss Frances Cole. The offi- 
cers are Mrs. J. M. McCormack, president; Mrs. R. 0. John- 
ston and Wesley Halliburton, vice-presidents ; Mrs. Bolton 
Smith, recording secretary ; Miss Frances Church, correspond- 
ing secretary and Miss Lettie Riley, treasurer. 

The Teachers League, whose work has already been dwelt 
upon somewhat in the chapter on Education, was organized by 
Miss Cora Ashe, who was the first president and has since been 
made honorary president. The League now has over 250 mem- 
bers and the present officers are : Mrs. M. M. Ward, president ; 
S. L. Ragsdale, vice-president; Emma Rogers, corresponding 
secretary; Nellie Lunn, recording secretary; Birdie McGrath, 
treasurer; Charl Field, librarian; Marie Leary, musical direc- 
tor ; Roane Waring, Jr., legal adviser ; Olyve Jackson, historian. 

The Memphis Deaf Mutes Association was founded in 
October, 1910 and this organization gives benefit and enter- 
tainment to people who live in the silent world. The meetings 



562 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

are held in the Y. M. C. A. Building, N. E. Harris is president ; 
Mrs. N. C. Harris, vice-president; John A. Todd, secretary; E. 
P. Jones, treasurer. 

There are several medical associations for the purpose of 
advancing that profession. Of these the Memphis and Shelby 
County Medical Society affords profit and social intercourse 
to its members. They meet in the Odd Fellows Building. W. 
T. Black is president ; J. C. Ayres, vice-president ; B. N. Duna- 
vant, secretary. 

Many Memphis clubs and some of the most popular have 
been organized for purely social recreation and are maintained 
to that end. These are far too numerous to name in sketch 
of limited length but some of the most popular and best known 
will be mentioned. ^ 

The Chickasaw Guards Club was originally organized in 
1874 by the men of that day who made the Chickasaw Guards 
Military Company so famous. In 1886, after Memphis was on 
her new road to progress, the Club reorganized under the old 
charter. The chief promoters of the newly organized club were 
Captain S. T. Carnes, Lieutenant Kellar Anderson and Sergeant 
Richard "Wright. The club became very popular and many 
high-class business and social men joined its ranks. The first 
president of the 1886 club was Colonel H. A. Montgomery and 
Professor R. 0. Prewitt was secretary. The Club has ever 
retained its high standing. The present officers are: H. H. 
Crosby, president; J. R. Flippin, vice-president; B. H. Finley, 
secretary and treasurer and Albert B. Baumberger, assistant 
secretary. The Directors are B. H. Finley, J. B. Goodbar, S. 
P. Walker, E. C. Turner, W. G. Thomas, W. A. Bickford, J. D. 
Martin, H. H. Crosby, J. R. Flippin, L. L. Heiskell. 

The Tennessee Club is another social organization for men 
which is somewhat exclusive and offers comfort and other 
advantages to its members. This club was organized May 7, 
1875, by Colton Green, C. W. Metcalf, I. M. Hill, H. C. Warri- 
ner, D. W. Miller, and D. P. Hadden. Colton Green was made 
president; R. B. Snowden, vice-president; W. M. S. Titus, sec- 
retary; H. C. Warinner, treasurer. By the close of the first 
year of its existence the Tennessee Club had nearly two hun- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 563 

dred members. It now has a beautiful home on the corner of 
North Court Avenue and Second Street, where members meet 
socially, dine, discuss questions of the times and occasionally 
entertain their friends with balls or other receptions. The 
present officers are N. C. Perkins, president; "William Ball, 
vice-president and treasurer; Julian E. Heard, secretary. 

The Rex Club is a social club for Jewish men, with high- 
class club advantages and they have recently moved into an 
elegant new building on the corner of Dunlap Street and 
Madison Avenue, where the members enjoy the club privileges 
and frequently entertain their friends. Abraham Cohn is presi- 
dent of the Rex Club and Leopold Hirsch, secretary. 

The Germans have several societies and improvement 
clubs. One of these, the German Casino Club, organized in 
1856, making it the oldest in Memphis. In the Casino the 
members all speak the German language and one of the objects 
of the club is to preserve their language and German institu- 
tions. Entertainments are frequent and the members of this 
club have had more share in cultivating taste for good music 
than is generally known. Among its membership are many 
of the best business men of Memphis and some of the most 
progressive in all civic undertakings. The club rooms are sit- 
uated at 190 Jefferson Avenue. Louis Schumacher is president 
and L. G. Fritz, secretary. 

The German Turn Verein holds its meetings in Germania 
Hall on Jefferson Avenue. The club has an efficient physical 
trainer and for many years this organization held precedence 
in interesting Memphis men and women in physical culture. 
Gustave A. Lott is president of the society. Otto Rahm, vice- 
president and G. H. Pfaff, instructor. 

The Maennerchor is another German organization that 
was started in 1871. Its purposes are to perpetuate the Ger- 
man language, German songs and to create sociability among 
the members. Its founders were Otto Zimmerman, S. Dam- 
stadt, P. Kahler, A. Goldsmith, M. Gotlieb, D. Schmivels, and 
A. Schmivels. The club meets in Germania Hall and its presi- 
dent is Harmon Starkey. 

The Country Club has a beautiful country home at Buntyn, 



564 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

a suburb of Memphis. There the men and women who are 
fortunate enough to be members enjoy the comfortable club- 
house and grounds. In the house, books, magazines, games, 
conversation and other social diversions are enjoyed, while the 
spacious grounds afford out-of-door games. The golf-links 
especially are good. The president of the Country Club is S. 
T. Carnes; first vice-president, F. G. Jones; second vice-presi- 
dent, Joseph W. ^Martin ; secretary, Homer K. Jones ; treasurer, 
N. C. Perkins. 

In 1857 the Old Folks Society of Shelby County was 
founded by old Memphis residents who wished to preserve for 
future generations authentic history of early Memphis. The 
society gathered numerous valuable records and continued to 
work until the war between the sections broke out. In 1870 
the society reorganized and continued its work for a number 
of years. In 1874-1875 the members issued a monthly magazine 
in which are preserved many valuable articles on the early 
days which will be read with increasing interest as the decades 
come and go. The society was never so active as during the 
year of the publication of its paper. In 1880 the Old Folks 
acquired the possession of Winchester Cemetery and rescued 
the remnants of that old resting place of the city's early dead 
and created a fund for its care. In fact, their efforts did much 
to arouse indignation at ruthless destruction of cemeteries 
and so brought about legislation in regard to the preservation 
of cemeteries. 

In 1874 the officers of the Old Folks Society were W. B. 
Waldran, president; J. Halsted, vice-president; J. G. Lons- 
dale, treasurer; B. Richmond, financial secretary; J. P. Pres- 
cott, recording secretary; James D. Davis, historian. These 
officers and the 150 members have made the people of Memphis 
their debtors for the invaluable stories, reminiscences and 
records they have left. Much of the information of the present 
volume was obtained from the Old Folks Record. 

Memphis w^as one of the first cities of the South to form 
an association for the perpetuation of Southern history, join- 
ing this object to the charitable cause of aiding disabled Con- 
federate soldiers and the widows and orphans of Southern 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 565 

men who gave their lives in the cause. The first society was 
the "Confederate Relief and Historical Association of the City 
of Memphis," was organized and incorporated in 1867 and 
exists to the present day. The Association is comprised of ex- 
Confederates whose records as soldiers were clean, and their 
male descendants. The relief duties of the society were soon 
unnecessary and it became historic only. These men have 
accumulated many records and manuscripts pertaining to the 
war, all of which are carefully preserved and much that would 
have otherwise been lost has been kept for future generations. 
In its early years the Association had only a few interested 
members but that small number persisted in having meetings 
at homes of the members, in discussing events, gathering 
records, placing true statements of Southern chivalry before 
the world and in interesting their fellow soldiers of former 
days. 

Officers of the early organization were C. W. Frazer, 
president ; R. B. Spillman, vice-president ; R. J. Black, secretary 
and John T. Willins, treasurer. Colonel Frazer who died in 
1897, was succeeded by General George W. Gordon. General 
Gordon also passed to his reward in 1911. 

As the sons became men they took up the work of their 
fathers and the association is one of interest and enthusiasm 
with its members of this day. It now has a room in the Shelby 
County Courthouse and its officers are, Edward Bourne, presi- 
dent; G. B. Malone, first vice-president; J. P. Young, second 
vice-president; I. N. Rainey, secretary and treasurer. 

Immediately after the war a law was made forbidding 
monuments to heroes or soldiers who died on the Southern 
side, but Memphis women loved the dead men who had fought 
for home and every year when spring fiowers were in bloom 
they mingled the youthful blossoms with hundreds of wreaths 
of evergreen and set apart a day to lay them on the soldiers' 
graves, at Elmwood. Later the unjust law was repealed and 
the Confederate Historical Association erected a granite shaft 
to the dead Confederate soldiers. But the more enduring shaft 
did not cause the women to cease their work of love and Mem- 
orial Day became and has remained a day of patriotic love and 



566 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

reverence of Southern women for Southern soldiers. This 
work has passed practically to another generation but it is 
continued no less lovingly and the monument and graves 
receive the yearly tribute of flowers and evergreen. The day 
has long since been recognized as a State holiday and Memorial 
Day is to Southern heart what Decoration Day is to the North. 
Indeed, Decoration Day was born after Memorial Day. 

The association which inaugurated and continues this work 
is the Ladies Memorial Association. This association is suc- 
cessor to the Southern Mothers, which was organized in 1861 
for the purpose of caring for wounded Confederate soldiers. 
Mrs. Sarah Law was president of that association. When the 
Federals took Memphis and the work of the Mothers stopped 
as an organization they nevertheless remained organized and 
the Mothers continued to work for wounded Confederate 
soldiers, Mrs. Law and some of the others following the armies 
to care for the wounded soldiers. 

After the war their work was gone so these women turned 
their attention to perpetuating the memory of the brave dead, 
though without formal organization. The work of love was 
performed each year, so the ladies determined to make it 
perpetual. Accordingly, on May 16, 1889, Mrs. C. W. Frazer 
made a call at her home and the former Southern Mothers 
organized under the name of the Ladies Confederate Historical 
Association, as an auxiliary to the Confederate Historical 
Association and under the charter of that organization. 

Southern Mothers who became active members of the 
Memorial Association were Mesdames Sarah Law, Flora Tur- 
ley, W. B. Greenlaw, Phoebe A. Edmonds, Mary E. Cummings, 
Emily Ball, Mary B. Beecher, M. C. Galloway, Henrietta Bowen 
and J. H. Humphreys and Miss Betty Yancy. The officers of 
the new organization were, Mrs. C. W. Frazer, president ; Mrs. 
Luke W. Finlay, secretary; Mrs. Eugene Whitfield, treasurer. 
When Mrs. Frazer gave place to another active president she 
was made honorary president for life and this brave woman 
still works with the Association. Presidents following have 
been Mesdames Luke E. Wright, Keller Anderson, Hugh L. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 567 

Bedford, J. C. McDavitt, Mary E. Wormely and C. B. Bryan. 
The secretaries have been Mesdames F. T. Edmondson, S. A, 
Pepper, Thomas Day, L. E. Wright, Ina Murray and Misses 
Mary Solari and Phoebe Frazer. The treasurers have been 
Mrs. Kellar Anderson, 0. E. Bayliss, J. H. Moyston and Kate 
Southerland. 

The chief work of the Ladies Memorial Association is per- 
petuating the memory of the Confederate soldiers and to this 
end money is contributed to monuments all over the South. 
These ladies built a pavilion in Elmwood to accommodate the 
speakers, band, etc., on Memorial Day and in conjunction with 
the Historical Association erected headstones at the graves of 
the soldiers. 

The United Sons of Confederate Veterans is an associa- 
tion active in its work of perpetuation. The present Adjutant 
General and Chief of Staff of the "Sons" is N. Bedford For- 
rest, grandson of the illustrious cavalry leader. 

There are several Chapters of the Daughters of the Con- 
federacy here, among them the N. Bedford Forrest Chapter, 
with Mrs. N. Bedford Forrest, president ; the Sarah Law Chap- 
ter, with Mrs. J. W. Clapp, president and Mrs. E. B. Moseley, 
secretary; Harvey Mathes Chapter, with Mrs. W. A. Collier, 
president and Mrs. Earnest Walworth, secretary; and the 
Mary Latham Chapter, with Mrs. J. L. Manire, president and 
Mrs. Henry Lipford, Jr., secretary. 

On June 10, 1904, Mrs. Virginia Frazer Boyle, that true 
daughter of a Confederate soldier but still so American that 
the whole country loves her, organized the Junior Confederate 
Memorial Association with sixteen children. 

The boys over fourteen were organized into a Drum and 
Fife Corps, under an efficient director, Mr. E. T. Atkins. At 
the Jamestown Exposition in 1907 this Drum and Fife Corps 
acted as escort to Company A, Confederate Veterans and dur- 
ing that visit, which was successful from the time they left 
Memphis until they returned, the corps scored one triumph 
after another, besides having a glorious trip. 

The membership of the J. C. M. A. now numbers over 



568 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

two hundred. Mrs. Boyle is honorary president; Mrs. P. H. 
Patton, president; Mrs. J. 0. Flautt, vice-president. 

In 1885 the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association was 
organized in Memphis with Mrs. Elizabeth Lyle Saxon, presi- 
dent. Mrs. Saxon had been an earnest worker in the cause of 
Equal Suffrage for many years. She was succeeded in 1886 
by Mrs. Lide Meriwether, another veteran worker for this 
cause. These two pioneers, both still living can remember 
when it was a brand of disgrace to stand up for the equal 
political and social life of women with men. Mrs. Meriwether 
remained president until 1899, when Mrs. Elise Massey Selden 
was elected to the office and Mrs. Meriwether elected honorary 
president for life. Mrs. Martha Allen became president in 
1906 and she too has worked long for the cause. The present 
officers are Mrs. M. M. Betts, president ; Mrs. E. W. Bowser, 
vice-president ; Mrs. A. Apperson, treasurer ; Mrs. J. H. Reilly, 
recording secretary and Mrs. J. D. Allen, corresponding sec- 
retary. 

The musical clubs and their work have already been partly 
discussed in the chapter on Arts. They have been of great 
benefit both to their members and to Memphis at large. Of 
these the Beethoven is the most important and to this club is 
much of the musical culture of Memphis due. The charter 
members of the Beethoven Club were Mrs. Elizabeth Cowan 
Latta, Miss Isabella Gertz (now Mrs. A. J. Thus), Mrs. E. T. 
Tobey and Miss Mary Duke (now Mrs. A. H. Wisner). The 
present officers are Mrs. Eugene Douglass, president ; Mrs. E. 
T. Tobey, Mrs. A. D. DuBose and Mrs. L. Y. Mason, vice-presi- 
dents; Mrs. William II. Barnes, corresponding secretary; Mrs. 
E. W. Taylor, recording secretary and Miss Annie Dickson, 
treasurer. 

Mrs. Ben Parker has charge of the monthly concerts for 
the year 1912 and these promise to be as much or more pleasure 
and benefit to the public as were those of 1911. 

There is also a Junior Beethoven Club, this organization 
coming into being principally through the efforts of Mrs. 
Napoleon Hill. This music-loving woman, who was for eight 
years president of the Senior Club, is known as the "Mother" 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 569 

of the younger club and she has done a great deal to encourage 
young people to cultivate their musical talents. She gives an 
annual gold medal as a reward to successful musicians of this 
club. After the club was on a substantial basis Mrs. Hill with- 
drew from active work and Mrs. Jason Walker became the 
active leader, Mrs. Chapman followed her and both these 
ladies were untiring in furthering the interests of the club and 
club members. This club is the largest musical organization 
for children in this country and perhaps in the world. It has 
over a hundred members, divided into chapters which meet 
each week in convenient neighborhoods to be trained by their 
leaders. The Mary Hill Chapter, named for the founder, is the 
governing chapter of the club and meets once a month for 
business. At this same meeting all the chapters meet and 
have a monthly concert. The junior officers of the club are: 
President, Juliet Graham; first vice-president, Avaligne Edg- 
ington; second vice-president, Jennie Evans; third vice-presi- 
dent, Marcelle Talley; treasurer, Ruth Gothard; recording 
secretary, Nell Lewis ; corresponding secretary, Rebecca Spieer. 
The chapters, with their respective leaders, are as follows: 
Mary Hill Chapter, Mrs. W. P. Chapman and Juliet Graham, 
leaders ; Mozart Chapter, Mrs. Rogers McCallum, leader ; Haydn 
Chapter, Mrs. Stella Graham, leader; Chopin Chapter, Miss 
Alma Ramsey, leader; Ernest Hutcheson Chapter, Misses 
Louise Faxon and Elizabeth Wills, leaders; Arne Oldberg 
Chapter, Miss May Maer and Mrs. W. P. Chapman, leaders; 
Schumann Chapter, Miss Annie Dickson, leader; Symphony 
Chapters, Mrs. Ben Hunter and Miss Zoa DeShazo, leaders. 

In 1909 the Memphis Symphony Orchestra Association 
was organized, composed of fifty professional musicians. Their 
object is to encourage musical talent and musical taste in 
Memphis and to give to the city each year a symphony orches- 
tra. This association, in addition to the orchestra, presents 
vocal and instrumental artists. Some of the great musicians 
already brought by the Symphony Orchestra are Madame 
Louise Homer; Madame Johanna Gadski; Mrs. Francis Mac- 
millan, violinist ; Signor Alassandro Bonci ; also the New York 
Symphony Orchestra of fifty players and four soloists, con- 



570 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

ducted by Walter Damrosche. The symphonies of this organi- 
zation are all star entertainments and certainly do credit to the 
conductors, as their large attendance does to the taste of 
Memphis. 

Civic clubs perform an important function in creating city 
pride and activity for city betterment. On November 7, 1908, 
The Civic Progress League of Memphis was organized. The 
object of this League, as set forth in the first section of the 
Rules and Regulations, is to provide "the improvement and 
betterment of Memphis in respect to rendering more beautiful 
her streets, homes and environment, to improve sanitary con- 
ditions, to render home life and conditions more comfortable 
and in providing outdoor recreation and sports for the better 
development of young children." 

The Civic League has four departments, — Civic Improve- 
ment, Sanitary Science, Domestic Science and Children. 

The following officers were appointed : J. P. Young, presi- 
dent ; Mrs. H. C. Myers, first vice-president ; Joseph R. Wil- 
liams, second vice-president; Mrs. J. M. McCormack, third 
vice-president ; Mrs. Wallace James, recording secretary ; Mary 
V. Little, corresponding secretary and Mrs. J. W. Pumphrey, 
treasurer. The Governing Board comprised Joseph R. Wil- 
liams, chairman ; Mrs. M. M. Betts and Mrs. F. M. Guthrie. 

The four departments were thus assigned : Civic Improve- 
ment — Judge L. B. McFarland, chairman. This includes Land- 
scape Architecture, Shade-trees and Flowers. Sanitary Science 
— Dr. B. F. Turner, chairman. This includes Hygienic Laun- 
dries, Tuberculosis, Sanitary Groceries, Public and Personal 
Hygiene and professional Nursing. Domestic Science — Mrs. 
H. C. Myers, chairman. This includes Housekeeper's Club, 
House Furnishing and Interior Decorations, Delicatessen (pre- 
pared foods). Cookery and Dietetics. 

Children — Mrs. M. M. Betts, chairman. This includes 
Fresh Air Parks, Playgrounds and Physical Culture. There 
have been many changes in this roster since organization. 

A city as active as Memphis in a business way naturally 
has numerous business clubs. Of these the Bureau of Publicity 
and Development is a great factor in furthering the business 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 571 

of the city and in bringing new business to and within her 
borders. The following officers and working members are 
enough to prove the efficiency of this organization : 

J. N. Cornatzar, chairman; F. W. Faxon, first vice-chair- 
man; J. L. Lancaster, second vice-chairman; S. B. Anderson, 
D. M. Armstrong, 0. C. Armstrong, H. W. Brennan, S. L. Cal- 
houn, Sol Coleman, Carrol P. Cooper, E. B. LeMaster, L. W. 
Dutro, John W. Farley, F. N. Fisher, A. C. Floyd, Jacob Gold- 
smith, G. B. Harper, R. L. Jordan, C. P. J. Mooney, B. L. 
Mallory, H. C. Pfeiffer, Chas. A. Price, W. H. Russe, I. Samel- 
son, T. H. Tutwiler, W. A. Turner, F. C. Johnson, W. F. Meath, 
J. K. James, S. H. Stout, R. E. Buchanan, J. S. Warren, John 
Parham, M. S. Binswanger, J. H. Hines, E. S. Sutton, Joe Isele, 
M. H. Rosenthal, John W. McClure, John M. Tuther, L. M. 
Stratton, J. F. Ramier. 

The Business Men's Club has a beautiful building on 
Monroe Avenue, where its members enjoy social as well as 
business advantages. The work of this club for Memphis wel- 
fare is inestimable. The officers are: S. M. Neely, president; 
W. P. Phillips, first vice-president; A. L. Parker, second vice- 
president; James F. Hunter, treasurer; John M. Tuther, sec- 
retary. The Directors are : S. M. Neely, D. H, Crump, Calvin 
Graves, J. F. Hunter, A. L. Parker, M. G. Evans, C. J. Haase, 
W. P. Phillips, H. C. Pfeiffer and William White. 

The Builders' Exchange, organized in 1899, is also a power 
in the Memphis business world. Its officers are Charles R. 
Miller, president; F. L. McKnight, first vice-president ; J. E. Wal- 
den, second vice-president ; J. W. Willingham, treasurer ; Stuart 
H. Ralph, secretary ; Miss Frances A. Taylor, assistant secretary. 
The directors are, L. S. Akers, I. N. Chambers, R. F. Creson, D. 
M. Crawford, F. S. Denton, H. J. Bartl, William M. Fry, P. A. 
Gates, W. T. Hudson and L. T. Lindsey. The headquarters of 
this Exchange is in the Goodwyn Building. 

There is also an Insurance Exchange of Memphis, of which 
W. A. Bickford is president and Wm. F. Dunbar, secretary. 
Insurance has also become a business science and Memphis is 
not behind in handling this science. 

March 26, 1860, the Chamber of Commerce was established 



572 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

in Memphis, Thomas W. Hunt was made president and John S, 
Toof, secretary. Their first regular meeting was held August 
24, 1860 in the Southern Express Building. This organization 
promised to be a power in the business of Memphis but the war 
between the sections interfered with its purposes. After the 
war they reorganized and did a great deal to further the busi- 
ness interests of the city, helping as no other force in having 
unjust carpet-bag laws repealed and stimulating a healthful busi- 
ness enterprise. The Chamber had several backsets from the 
calamities that visited the city and in 1878 it was disorganized. 

In 1883 the Merchants Exchange was established with 
nearly 100 charter members. Since the disruption of the 
Chamber of Commerce a business organization was needed by 
merchants, manufacturers and other business men, that they 
might further the business interests of the city and have a 
means of reaching the Legislature and the public. As much 
of the progress of a city is built on the work of its business 
organizations the Merchants Exchange became a very import- 
ant function from its beginning and its influence has never 
ceased, although it has many descendants, other business asso- 
ciations, all looking after the business and general improve- 
ment of the city. 

The present officers of the Merchants Exchange are W. W. 
Simmons, president ; j\I. M. Bosworth, vice-president ; Nat S. 
Graves, secretary; S. M. Williamson, treasurer. The Directors 
are E. C. Buchanan, G. F. McGregor, W. C. Johnson, John 
Myers, S. M. "Williamson, A. G. Perkins, J. B. Edgar, Julien 
L. Brode. 

The Memphis Cotton Exchange was established in 1'873, 
and, as its name implies, is the Exchange for the cotton men. 
This Exchange is of course a vastly important one and controls 
the biggest staple of our cotton country. Its force is felt 
through the entire business of Memphis and far beyond the 
city, throughout the country. In its early years the Cotton 
Exchange erected a building on the corner of Madison and 
Second Streets which was for a long time a pride of the city, 
but as styles change in clothing, so buildings become antiquated 
and the once proud exchange building became ''old-timey" 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 573 

and inefficient, so it Avas torn down to give place to an elegant 
modern "sky-scraper," which not only houses the Cotton 
Exchange in commodious and elegant rooms, but many offices, 
a large club and numerous stores. 

The officers of the Cotton Exchange are F. G. Barton, presi- 
dent; C. W. Butler, Gwynne Yerger and John Phillips, vice- 
presidents; T. 0. Vinton, treasurer; Henry Hotter, secretary 
and superintendent. The Directors are John Phillips, Jr., J. F. 
Smithwick, M. J. Hexter, W. F. Meath, Carroll P. Cooper, E. 
G. Gibbons, C. A. Lacey. 

The Lumberman's Club is an organization very useful 
to the many lumbermen here and abroad and of course furthers 
the interests of the lumber trade to a very great extent. Its 
officers are F. B. Robertson, president; C. B. Dudley, first 
vice-president; Phil A. Ryan, second vice-president; Robert 
T. Cooper, secretary and treasurer. The Directors are R. J, 
Wiggs, A. N. Thompson, C. W. Holmes, S. W. Nickey and J. 
D. Allen. 

As Memphis has grown to be a manufacturing center it 
was necessary for her and her manufacturers to have a business 
organization, and the Manufacturers' Association of Memphis 
was organized in 1912. This Association promises to build 
Memphis as no other organization has done, by devoting its 
energies entirely to the manufacturing interests. The officers 
are S. B. Anderson, president; George R. James, first vice- 
president and treasurer; J. T. Willingham, second vice-presi- 
dent; John M. Tuther, secretary. The Governing Board is 
composed of Frank R. Reed, Silas Riggs, H. P. Boynton, Milton 
H. Hunt, J. E. Stark, Owen Lily, C. P. J. Mooney, J. H. DuBose, 
T. J. Clark, H. 0. True, L. D. Falls, W. W. Simmons, C. B. 
Clark, L. P. James, Thos. R. Winfield. 

Most important among the civic bodies which have from 
time to time sprung up in Memphis has been the City Club. In 
all municipal corporations there is need for a body, independ- 
ent in action and free from political motive, which can operate 
as a sort of balance wheel in the machinery of government 
and aid without antagonizing the officials charged with munic- 



574 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

ipal administration. Such a body is the City Club of Memphis. 
Since its organization its influence has been only for good. 

Its organization was brought about in the following way : 

On Saturday, the 11th of May, 1907, the following gentle- 
men, at the request of Dr. R. B. Maury, lunched together at 
Luehrmann's: H. M. Neely, J. M. Goodbar, Jno. R. Pepper, 
W. H. Bates, Bolton Smith, H. L. Armstrong, Jas. S. Robinson, 
Dr. R. B. Maury. 

A temporary organization was effected; H. M. Neely, chair- 
man; Bolton Smith, secretary. Organization of bodies of citi- 
zens interested in municipal affairs of other cities was consid- 
ered. The records of the City Club of Cincinnati, Ohio, seem 
to have interested the meeting most. Result: It was decided 
to organize a similar organization to be called the City Club 
of Memphis. 

Saturday, May 25, 1907, the gentlemen lunched together 
in the private dining room of the Royal Cafe ; the attendance 
had increased to about twenty in number. The City Club was 
organized and the following officers elected : Dr. R. B. Maury, 
president ; Jno. R. Pepper, vice-president ; Jas. S. Robinson, 
second vice-president ; Geo. R. James, treasurer ; Bolton Smith, 
secretary; "W. H. Bates, member board of governors; J. M. 
Goodbar, member board of governors. 

The officers of the club and the last two gentlemen named 
constituted the Governors. The objects of the club, as stated 
at organization was to bring together frequently men who 
believe in the complete separation of party politics from the 
administration of all local public affairs, in order that, by 
friendly acquaintance, exchange of vicAvs and united activities, 
intelligent and effective cooperation in the work for good gov- 
ernment in Memphis and Shelby County may be secured. 

Having affected an organization the Club lost no time in 
getting to work. It has met regularly every Saturday at 
luncheon since the election of its officers, and the membership 
has now increased to about three hundred. The custom of the 
club is to invite from time to time to meet with it, those per- 
sons most interested in the matters under consideration, and 
also to call into conference at these meetings citizens, promi- 





c ^l c^^^ 79 . ^}V 




History of Memphis, Tennessee. 575 

nent in business or professional life, and to carefully consider 
and discuss all subjects before final action. 

One of the chief, early subjects considered was the Com- 
mission Form of Government for the City of Memphis, and the 
effect upon the municipality of the Legislative Acts of 1905 
and 1907, fully treated elsewhere in this history. The momen- 
tus question was frequently debated before the club both by 
the members and by the friends of the measure, and was finally 
happily brought about as a great municipal reform. 

The club was also in sympathy with the Front Foot Assess- 
ment Plan of paving the streets and took an active interest in 
its development. 

It was also responsible for the formation of the Bureau 
of Municipal Research, the story of which will be given follow- 
ing this narrative. 

The City Club realized in the autumn of 1910 that the 
invasion of the Memphis trading territory by the boll weevil 
constituted a great menace to the prosperity of the city as well 
as the surrounding country, and made it imperative that the 
farmers prepare themselves for crop diversification. For the 
purpose of aiding this movement the Club, in co-operation with 
the U. S. Government acting through Dr. Seaman A. Knapp of 
the Department of Agriculture, raised $5,000.00 for the purpose 
of establishing the Boys' Corn Club work in the Memphis 
territory. 

The City Club has considered and acted upon practically 
all of the important municipal questions coming before the 
city government or the people of Memphis for solution from 
the time it was organized until now. Among others we will 
mention : 

Street and alley cleaning and drainage, street railroads, 
city streets, normal school, poll taxes, errors in public inscrip- 
tions, weights and measures, amendment to constitution of 
Tennessee, changes in the revenue law, public service commis- 
sion bill, Turner anti-fee bill, Memphis street railway fran- 
chises, Madison Avenue paving, turnpike expenditures of 
Shelby County, purchase of the Tri-state fair grounds, disposal 
of Turnpike funds turned over to the city for street purposes, 



576 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

tuberculosis, Tri-state Audubon Society, smoke nuisance, new 
state constitution for Tennessee, new Memphis bridge across 
the Mississippi, law enforcement, house screening, plans of 
Circuit Court judge for reduction of jury expenses, and num- 
erous other minor matters. 

The present officers of the City Club are : Dr. R. B. Maury, 
honorary president ; C. C. Hanson, president ; R. 0. Johnson, 
first vice-president ; J. Z. George, second vice-president ; E. 0. 
Gillican, secretary; Abe Goodman, treasurer. Directors: C. 
C. Hanson, R. 0. Johnston, J. Z. George, Abe Goodman, J. M. 
Goodbar, C. F. Farnsworth, E. 0. Gillican. 

The Bureau of Municipal Research is an off-shoot of the 
City Club. The conception originated with Dr. R. B, Maury, 
president of the City Club, who, in the fall of 1908, became 
interested in the work of the New York Bureau of Municipal 
Research. Upon his invitation Dr. W. H. Allen, director of 
the New York Bureau, visited Memphis, and at a dinner given 
at the Business Men's Club on December 5, 1908, explained 
the purposes and methods of that organization. As a result 
of this meeting a group of interested citizens invited the New 
York Bureau to make a brief study of the business procedure 
and methods of the City of Memphis. In accordance with this 
request, a preliminary survey was undertaken by a well-known 
New York investigator, and a report thereon submitted on 
February 9, 1909, which indicated the advisability of a more 
extensive study and outlined a definite program of work to 
cover a period of six months. 

It was the unanimous decision of the men interested that 
the work should be continued as outlined in the report, and a 
committee of fifty was formed, the members of which pledged 
themselves to provide the necessary funds. The following 
officers were appointed : 

President, Dr. R. B. Maury ; vice-president, Albert S. Cald- 
well ; secretary, W. A. Buckner. Executive Committee : Cyrus 
Garnsey, Jr., chairman; Geo. R. James, Caruthers Ewing, R. 
Brinkley Snowden, Jas. S. Robinson. 

The purposes of the bureau are thus stated in the announce- 
ment made at its organization : 





CKJ\jU[y:LMy 



Jkt 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 511 

"To serve Memphis as a non-partisan and scientific agency 
of citizen inquiry, which shall collect, classify and interpret 
the facts regarding the powers, duties, limitations, and admin- 
istrative problems of each department of the city and county 
government and public school systems ; to make such informa- 
tion available to public officials and to citizens, in order that 
inefficient methods of administration may be eliminated, and 
efficient methods encouraged ; and to promote the development 
of a constructive program for the city, county and schools that 
shall be based upon adequate knowledge and consideration of 
community needs." 

Work was promptly begun and a systematic investigation 
prosecuted, and in October, 1910, the executive committee pub- 
lished an elaborate report entitled: "Memphis, a Critical Study 
of Some Phases of its Municipal Government, with Construc- 
tive Suggestions for Betterment in Organization and Adminis- 
trative Methods," an impersonal and critical analysis of public 
affairs as then existing and a clearly marked way to improve- 
ment. 

In March, 1910, the Committee was reorganized by the 
City Club and was constituted as follows : C. C. Hanson, 
chairman ; J. P, Young, vice-chairman ; Marcus Haase, treas- 
urer; C. F. Farnsworth, Bolton Smith, Thomas F. Gailor. 

The Bureau was incorporated in December, 1910, at the 
instance of the City Club, thus making it independent of the 
Club and its present officers and directors are : C. C. Hanson, 
president ; H. M. Neely, vice-president ; R. 0. Johnston, treas- 
urer ; E. 0. Gillican, secretary. Directors : R. B. Maury, Thomas 
F. Gailor, J. P. Young, H. M. Neely, C. F. Farnsworth, R. 0. 
Johnston, D. Canale, Jos. Isele, I. N. Chambers, C. C. Hanson. 

Some work done by the Bureau has been, after investiga- 
tion, to install an adequate system of accounting for the Mem- 
phis Board of Education. 

Also to install a like system of accounting for the Shelby 
County Board of Education. 

The Bureau, at the request of Mayor E. H. Crump and 
Commissioner Riechman, cooperated with the city officials in 
the preparation of the budget of expenditures for the year 



578 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

1910 and conferred with them concerning the necessary steps 
to be taken to correct the defects in the then existing account- 
ing methods of the city government. This was a work of great 
labor and care. 

Of the report on city finances made by the City Commission 
in August, 1911, Mayor Crump wrote to the Chairman of the 
Municipal Research, August 24: 

"Have you read the last city report, showing in detail the 
work of each department, and which was formulated along 
the lines suggested by the Bureau of Municipal Research? 

"Of course, we realize that this report is susceptible of 
improvement, but in spite of that it is a great improvement 
over anything heretofore issued, and undoubtedly the Bureau 
of Municipal Research has been the means of bringing about a 
more definite statement for the information of the taxpayers 
and public generally." 

The Memphis Bureau of Municipal Research is still a live 
organization and ready to take part in municipal and county 
improvements in administration whenever the occasion may 
require. 




■ tif/Acms cSBcr JVy 




(C^ 



/C_t--«_-;r' 



1^ 



CHAPTER XXVI 



Banks and Insurance 



"•■■r HE first money used in Memphis was currency of Tennessee, 
/I I North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.* This was 
^■^ depreciated currency and not equal to United States coin 
and when Southern people went East or bought goods from the 
East their money could be used only at a discount of 25 to 30 per 
cent. To make small change a dollar bill was cut into four equal 
parts for quarters or twenty-five cent pieces and sometimes even 
these were again divided into halves, making "bits" or twelve 
and a half cents. 

As the population grew in numbers and Memphis in business 
importance a bank was felt to be a necessity and one was estab- 
lished in 1834, under the charter of the State. This was called 
the Farmers and Merchants Bank, and its first acting manager 
was Ike Rawlings, that intrepid old citizen who, after once 
agreeing to the advancement of Memphis did all he could to bring 
it about. 

This bank was a big stride for Memphis in those early days 
and was a source of pride wdth business men and the theme of 
much conversation in its beginning. After the death of Mr. 
Rawlings, Robert Lawrence was elected as president and served 
in this capacity to the satisfaction of the people. The death of 
Mr. Rawlings was a great loss to Memphis but his work for the 
young city has never ceased to bear fruit. The last time the old 
man was seen on the streets was on the day after the Presidential 
election in 1840. Two negro men carried him to the polls in a 
chair on that day to vote and he cast his vote for Harrison. His 
candidate was elected and he lived long enough to rp.inicp over 

*Vedder. 



580 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

the fact. He never saw another election and passed from life 
just when Memphis was fairly beginning her political history. 

The president of this bank had the confidence of all the 
people, from the most intelligent business man to the most 
ignorant slave. Slaves in those days had much more liberty than 
in later days, when they had become a theme of bitterness between 
the sections of the country. Many of them had bank accounts 
and they were generally encouraged by their owners to save their 
earnings. It is recorded that Marcus B. Winchester opened a 
regular account with all of his slaves, charging them with their 
purchase money, food, clothing, etc., and crediting them with all 
of their labor, with the view to their buying their freedom. 

Before the establishment of a bank almost everybody in Mem- 
phis was in debt and the rule was credit with long time, because 
money was loaned at such exorbitant rates, sometimes as high 
as six per cent a month. 

The financial panic of 1837 brought distress to Tennessee 
and other "Western States because of the unstable currency and 
"wild-cat" banks, with their unsteady and insufficient capital. 
Colonel Keating says of this time : ' ' The whole financial system 
of the country was one of mere paper, promises to pay, the sol- 
vency of which depended upon the demand for payment being 
put off as long as possible. Speculation was rife, and the specu- 
lators who were to be found among all classes, were wild in their 
calculations as to the near future and all values were inflated 
beyond the ability of a generation to realize. This structure of 
paper yielded to the first breath of the storm and wholly disap- 
peared, leaving people who had trusted to it and who had been 
the victims of its greed, rapacity and thieving operations, ruined 
and in despair." 

In 1838 the Legislature provided for a State bank that was 
to have a main bank in Nashville with branches in different parts 
of the State. This bank was "Established in the name of and 
for the benefit of the State," and "the faith and credit of the 
State were pledged for the support of the bank and to supply any 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 581 

deficiency in the funds therein specifically pledged and to give 
indemnity for all losses arising from such deficiency."* 

This bank had a capital of $5,000,000, with the State the sole 
stockholder. It was established in order to prevent a recurrence 
of the panic of the year before and Colonel Keating called this 
bank the "anchor of the State." It was named, the Bank of 
Tennessee. 

After the establishment of this institution confidence was 
again restored in Tennessee and other banks were established in 
Memphis. By 1841 bank accommodations here were quite equal 
to wants of the trade and besides the State bank privileges Mem- 
phis had the Union, the Planters and the Farmers and Merchants 
banks, all having assets seven times greater than their liabilities. 

In 1848 the Farmers and Merchants Bank closed its doors 
and almost caused a riot in the city, but this was kept down by 
the officers and peaceable citizens and affairs were afterward 
adjusted by the bank so that depositors were not entire losers. 
After this Memphis got on such a firm banking basis that when 
the financial panic of the whole country came in 1857 Memphis 
felt it but slightly and her prosperous condition continued until 
the breaking out of the war in 1861. During the four-year period 
that followed there was such a general disruption of Memphis 
banks that after the conflict it was necessary to reestablish a bank- 
ing basis. Several banks were established and in some of them 
people deposited all the savings they could scrape together or 
save from necessary expenses in order to obtain a new start after 
their severe war losses. 

In the latter part of 1865 the banking capital amounted to 
$400,000, and by 1870 it had increased to $1,700,781, still $300,000 
short of what it had been in 1860. But in 1867, the Gayoso 
Savings Institution, and in 1872, the Memphis Savings Bank 
failed, bringing disaster and discouragement to many who had 
been saving all they could possibly spare in order to get a new 
start or to provide for contingencies. 

After the yellow fever epidemic of 1873 the Freedman's 

♦Quoted by Keating. 



582 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

yavings Bank collapsed, the First JNational Bank closed for a 
short while, the Union and Planters, the iierman xXationai and the 
DeJSoto Banks ail had heavy runs and narrow escapes but they 
all suceeeaed m escaping taiiuie. Alter iiie ai«a.sLruu;s 
epidemics of 1878 and 1879 we know how Memphis fell oh: in 
L»LU>iiief)S as well as m every way anu lor Lv»eniy years sue was no 
longer a city but the Taxing District of fShelby County. This 
period of enforced economy and good management of the authori- 
ties brought the city to her own again and long before the close of 
the century good faith was established and numerous banks were 
running on a firm basis. 

In 1893 the Memphis banks were on such a firm footing that 
when the financial panic of that year spread over the country 
Memphis was one of the few cities that had no bank failures nor 
suspensions. iNone of the Memphis banks even limited its pay- 
ments during that trying period and the report of 1894 showed 
that there had been no change in any of the nine commercial 
banks with capital and surplus of over $6,500,000 and eight 
savings banks, with capital and surplus of over half a million 
dollars. Each of these had declared regular dividends. As one 
of the chief indications of a city's success is shown in the pros- 
perity of her banks this spoke well for Memphis and gave confi- 
dence at home and abroad. The years following emphasized this 
stability and the combined capital of the banks in 1897 was 
$3,392,500.* 

Memphis banking in the new century is without any striking 
history which is proof of its steady prosperity. There have been 
one or two bank waverings and suspensions for a short while but 
these have been rectified and the depositors' interests secured. 

Memphis furnishes millions of dollars for handling the 
cotton crops and other business branches are all w'ell supplied. 

As sufficient yearly bank clearings have been scattered all 
through the general history of this work to show their importance 
and increase, such figures will not be reiterated here. The Mem- 
phis Clearing House was established in 1879, during a time of 

*Report of Merchant's Exchange. 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 583 

general business depression, and its reports have frequently been 
given in other chapters to show the increase in business. The 
Jiemphis Clearing House Association is now situated at 32 South 
Main Street. E. L. Price is president; J. D. McDowell, ^ice- 
president, and James Nathan, manager. 

The present banks of Memphis are : 

Chickasaw Bank and Trust Company, incorporated in 1902. 
George E. Neuhardt, president; T. J. Turley, vice-president; S. L. 
Sparks, cashier. 

National City Bank; J. T. Willingham, president ; W. Hali- 
burton, J. Marlin Speed, vice-presidents; W. H. Kyle, cashier. 

Commercial Trust and Savings Bank; Abe Goodman, presi- 
dent ; Lem Banks, vice-president ; Simon Jacobs, second vice-presi- 
dent ; Dwight M. Armstrong, cashier. 

Continental Savings Bank; Rhea P. Gary, receiver. 

First National Bank, organized 1864. J. A. Omberg, presi- 
dent ; S. H. Brooks, vice-president ; P. S. Smithwick, active vice- 
president; C. Q. Harris, cashier. 

Germania Savings Bank and Trust Company; Harry Cohn, 
president; Walter B. McLean, vice-president; J. A. Goodman, 
cashier. 

ManJiattan Savings Bank and Trust Company, organized 
1885. Hirsch Morris, president; James S. Robinson, vice-presi- 
dent; James Nathan, cashier. 

Mercantile Bank of Memphis, incorporated 1883, C. Hun- 
ter Raine, president; J. M. Fowlkes, Luke E. Wright, vice- 
presidents; Claude D. Anderson, cashier. 

North Memphis Savings Bank, incorporated 1904. Anthony 
Walsh, president; Joseph Rose, vice-president; Mortimer G. 
Bailey, cashier. 

People's Savings Bank and Trust Company; S. B. Ander 
son, chairman of board ; J. H. Smith, president ; S. ^l. NeeJy, 
vice-president; J. T. Wellford, second vice-president; Horace 
N. Smith, secretary and treasurer; A. C. Landstreet, assistant 
secretary and treasurer. 

State National Bank of Memphis; Geo. R. James, president ; 



584 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Cyrus Garnsey, Jr., and Frederick Orgill, active vice-presidents ; 
M. G. Buckingham, cashier. 

State Savings Bank, incorporated 1887. J. W. Proudiit, 
president; Philip Fransioli, vice-president; J. V. Montedonico, 
cashier. 

Union Savings Bank and Trust Company, organized 1895, 
J. A. Ormberg, president; H. Bensdorf, vice-president; Noland 
Fontaine, Jr., cashier. 

Bank of Commerce and Trust Company; T. 0. Vinton, 
president ; R. Brinkley Snowden, vice-president ; E. L. Rice, 
vice-president; James H. Fisher, secretary; S. J. Shepherd, 
trust officer; L. S. Gwyn, cashier; G. A. Bone, auditor. 

Central Bank and Trust Company ; N. C. Perkins, presi- 
dent; J. F. Mathias, vice-president; J. C. Ottinger, cashier. 

Fidelity Trust Company; Charles W. Thompson, president; 
D. D. Saunders, vice-president ; P. Galbreath, cashier. 

Memphis State Bank and Trust Company; W. J. Smith, 
president; J. S. McTighe, vice-president; E. E. Becker, cashier. 

Phoenix Trust Comjjany, organized 1911. John K. Mills, 
president; Marcus L. Saunders, vice-president; M. Orin Carter, 
secretary and treasurer. 

Security Bank and Trust Company, incorporated 1885. 
B. Polk, president ; Theodore Reed, R. S. Taylor, C. T. McCraw, 
vice-presidents; W. R. Cross, cashier. 

Solvent Savings Bank and Trust Company (colored), incor- 
porated 1906. J. C. Martin, president; Thos. H. Hayes, H. H. 
Pace, J. W. Sanford, vice-presidents ; Harry H. Pace, cashier. 

Fraternal Savings Bank (colored), incorporated 1909. J. 
Jay Scott, president; R. J. Petty, H. C. Purnell, vice-presidents; 
A. F. Ward, cashier. 

Union and Planters Bank and Trust Company ; S. P. Read, 
president ; J. R. Pepper, J. F. Hunter, Frank F. Hill, vice-pres- 
idents; J. D. McDowell, cashier. 

United States Trust and Savings Bank; G. R. James, presi- 
dent; W. H. Wood, Miles G. Buckingham, vice-presidents; W. 
W. Stevenson, cashier. 

Steamboat accidents made life-insurance companies popular 




£''iff.i^Sy^.Jt^?/ama iSStoMY: 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 5^5 

in Memphis as early as the thirties, but no Memphis insurance 
firm was formed until 1856, when the Home Insurance Com- 
pany was incorporated. After this they continued to be added 
at intervals, but not rapidly until after the war. After that 
insurance of all kinds multiplied in the country and Memphis 
had her share of local companies. i>y 1887 there were thirteen 
substantial firms, with capital stocks as follows: Arlington 
Insurance Company, $100,000; Bluif City Insurance Company, 
$150,000; Factors' Fire Insurance Company, $250,000; Factors' 
Mutual Insurance Company, $130,000; Hernando Insurance 
Company, $150,000; Memphis City Fire and General Insurance 
Company, $250,000; Home Insurance Company, $100,000; Peo- 
ple's Insurance Company, $200,000; Phoenix Fire and Marine 
Insurance Company, $150,000; Planters' Insurance Company, 
$150,000; Vanderbilt Mutual Insurance Company, $100,000; 
Germania Insurance Company, $150,000; Citizens' Insurance 
Company, $100,000. 

The popularitj^ and growth of this sort of protection since 
then has been phenomenal and at present there are over six 
hundred insurance companies represented in Memphis. These 
are general, accident, burglary, casualty, liability, fire, marine, 
guaranty, fraternal (Woodmen of the World), lightning, plate 
glass, sick, life, tornado, vessel, automobile, rental, and all kinds 
known to the science of Insuranr-,-. Insurance inspection is 
forced and this is under the charge of the Tennessee Inspection 
Bureau, William C. Sweetman, manager, located in the Ten- 
nessee Trust Building. 



^ CHAPTER XXVII 

Commerce and Manufactures 

^■yHE commerce of Memphis has been so generally treated in 
i 1 1 the municipal chapters of this book, as commerce has been 
^■^ such a vital part of the growth of the city, that it will be 
only briefly gone over here. Manufactures follow commerce and 
their interests are ever commingled. 

As we already know early commerce here was carried on 
with the Indians in barter trade but as this portion of the 
country became more thickly settled with white people trade 
improved. We have seen how flat-boats brought their cargoes 
to our bluffs, sold their goods, then the lumber of their boats 
and returned home on foot or horseback. Those were crude days 
of small convenience. Seed-corn was packed on horses and sent 
to the country to be planted, it was then rudely tended until 
the corn came and then the grains were pounded into meal in 
a mortar with a pestle. 

The first Memphis store was owned by Ike Rawlings. He 
was not pleased when rivals came but he soon grew reconciled 
as he saw increased business building up a town and it has been 
told how the latter part of his life was spent in furthering the 
interests of Memphis in every way he could and was one of the 
best friends of progress the young city had. 

By 1830 there were numerous stores, mechanics' shops and 
other places of business and people had come to realize the 
importance of cotton to the locality, as it was learned that Mem- 
phis lay in the heart of the cotton zone, this zone extending one 
hundred miles north of the Memphis parallel. In the autumn 
of 1826 about three hundred bales of cotton were handled in 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 587 

Memphis, coming chiefly from Hardeman and Fayette Counties. 

Before 1830 Joseph L. Davis established a cotton-press and 
as the staple increased and improved with the years inhabitants 
came and Memphis grew rapidly. Enterprising business men 
realized that manufactures ought to go hand in hand with pro- 
duce and early attempts were made in this way. A flour-mill was 
started, a saw-mill and a few unsuccessful attempts were made 
at manufacturing cotton. It has taken the people of this cotton 
country a long while to realize that right here where the fibre 
grows is the best place to carry on its manufacture. 

Other industries, becoming necessities of the people, fol- 
lowed: groceries opened, a drug-store and bakery were success- 
ful and were followed by others, tailors came, shoemakers, dress- 
makers, milliners and other workers that made progress for a 
community and easier times for its inhabitants. 

Goods were usually bought on time and bills settled once 
a year. If a man was unable to meet his indebtedness neighbors 
were willing and ready to go his security until he could pay and 
few ever lost by standing security for his neighbors in those 
days. A man's word then was considered as good as his bond 
and to doubt a man's word was to give him mortal offense. 

In 1830, 50,000 bales of cotton were shipped from the dis- 
trict about Memphis and six years later Memphis alone shipped 
that many bales. This exportation of cotton caused enterprising 
merchants to consider the advantages offered by the then new 
telegraph in obtaining each day the condition of the markets all 
over the country, but a telegraph was not really completed from 
here to an important city until 1843, when a local company 
built a line through to New Orleans. Thomas H. Allen was 
president of this company. 

The last years of the thirties seemed disastrous to Memphis, 
nearly all of her public ventures failing. Several leading mer- 
chants failed in business, the Farmers and Merchants Bank 
suspended, the building of important roads fell through and 
corporation credit was low, but it was a time of general depres- 
sion over the country. About 1840 Memphis revived and even 
before the East had regained its equillibrium business here had 



588 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

greatly improved and by 1842 was quite lively, 100 flat-boats 
commonly lying at the wharf at that time. 

In 1841-42, 60,000 bales of cotton were shipped from this 
point, and in 1845 over 100,000 bales were handled in Memphis. 
During this year a cotton convention was held in the Bluff City 
and did much to stimulate business. In 1846, 130,000 bales of 
cotton were shipped and the yearly increase continued. 

Dr. A. B. Merrill urged manufacturing in 1851, saying 
that Memphis "ought not only to export the agricultiiral pro- 
ducts of a large area of fertile country and import all the mer- 
chandise for the same region, but she ought also to contain the 
workshops from which should be sent out the cotton-gins, the 
cotton-presses, the sugar mills and corn mills, the wagons, carts 
and ploughs, the castings, the household furniture and many 
other things which planters have to buy. Memphis ought not 
only to supply these products of her mechanical industry to the 
district of country which has become, by geographical position, 
dependent upon her, but to all the vast delta which lies below 
us and all around us." 

Manufacturing ought to be the natural outcome of agri- 
culture but this cotton country has been very slow to give 
attention to any other industry but the growinp- of cotton. Occa- 
sional efforts would be made in the early days to inspire the 
desire for manufacturing but cotton men here knew only cotton 
in the bale and seemed not to care for it further than to ship 
it to American and European cities, where it was manufactured 
into all grades of cotton cloth, twine, bagginsr, etc., and the 
seeds often came back in the form of "olive oil." 

In 185.3 the great Commercial Convention met here and 
helped Memphis in manv wavs. as we have alrpndy sho^ATi in 
PTi pprlior phnr^tpr. Tr> 18F»fi. 200.000 hql^c of r"^t+on were shipped 
and about this average continued for several vpars. 

Tho bncir»pss of IVTppirtln's o-row v^rv rarti'^lv bptwppu 1850 
find 18R0 anrl thp nonulation i'^ ^-nirl to h'^vf^ ino^'^'^'^P'^ morp rlnrinc 
that decade than in any other citv in the Union. Cotton of 
course was still king, but wholesalp grocery bn«iness had crrown 
and other business interests were being inangnratpd with sue- 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 589 

cess. In 1860 business was the supreme subject but a few 
months changed the community from a business-building one 
to an aroused military center. The money-market was in almost 
a panic state, caused by the political upheaval of the country and 
enterprises that had given so much promise waned or died. 

War came and it was the chief subject, although business 
continued in a modified way and even held the interest of good 
business men for a while. In 1860 the Chamber of Commerce had 
been established and September 1, 1861, its secretary, Mr, John 
S. Toof, published the first annual report. This report showed 
a sale of 369,633 bales of cotton valued at $18,481,650, $3,000,000 
worth of manufactured articles and $9,700,000 worth of retail 
trade. This report was encouraging but the war eontinue.l, 
grew in proportions and absorbed business as well as all other 
subjects. The years following were paralyzed as to trade and 
even records of the little business left were not kept. The Cham- 
ber of Commerce that had been organized to benefit the city 
ended and the late city pride and progress were gone. 

We know too well the fate of Memphis during the years of 
the war. When it ended the South was in such a distressed 
condition that it seemed all hope was gone. When Memphis 
soldiers who had survived returned they came to impoverished 
homes and had to submit to a new order of rule by people who 
had come from other places. The flourishing Memphis of four 
years ago seemed dead and chaos was dominant. There were 
no crops, the city had no credit, the form of labor had changed 
without a new form being established, hundreds of unemployed 
negroes loafed around expecting wonderful riches from the gov- 
ernment. No city suffered more from the ffects of the war than 
Memphis. 

The first year after "peace" had been declared might almost 
be said to have been a listless one and 1867 did not solve the 
problem. James F. Rhodes expressed the condition of this year. 
He said: "The South was in a state of agricultural and indus- 
trial distress and what little recovery there had been since the 
close of the war was neutralized by the unsatisfactory political 
conditions." 



590 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Exorbitant taxes were placed on cotton and other restric- 
tions enforced which continued to hold the people down and 
retard development. But iu time the Southern people lost their 
discouragement and, enraged at unjust measures passed upon 
them, began to assert their human and State rights. The Cham- 
ber of Commerce revived and it did a great deal toward having 
business restrictions abolished. The awakening once commenced 
of course business went straight ahead and in 1869 R. C. Floyd, 
in a little history of Memphis written at that time said : ' ' Eight 
saw-mills are in operation, employing over two hundred hands; 
six foundries, with four hundred workmen; five marble yards, 
with fifty hands ; three brick yards, with sixty hands ; four sash, 
door and blind factories, with one hundred and fifty hands; 
flouring mills, with fifty hands ; besides cotton gin factories and 
numerous businesses that give employment to the mechanic and 
laboring man. Street railways now stretch to all parts of the 
city, making travel from the Memphis and Louisville Railroad 
depot, in the northern part of the city, even as far as Elmwood 
Cemetery, in the furthermc^t southern limit, cheap and speedy." 

1870 opened a new era for the city and disaster was for- 
gotten in the bettered conditions and rapid growth of business. 
This year showed cotton receipts for 290,738 bales of cotton and 
led all the cities of the Union in the manufacture of cotton-seed 
oil. This product from all the mills amounted to 7,400 barrels 
of oil and 4,080 tons of cake. 

This oil had become an important product and was used for 
many purposes, the one of use in cooking not at first being 
popular, but it always takes a while for people to become accus- 
tomed to change or to take to it favorably. However, the clean- 
liness and purity of this vegetable oil gradually won for it favor 
and now most housekeepers and cooks prefer it to lard. This 
once-wasted product has also served Memphis well in helping her 
to become a manufacturing city. 

The new prosperity continued and Memphis had two years 
of rapid commercial growth but in 1873 came another check. 
This was overcome, business life came again and improvements 
increased. The Chamber of Commerce showed in 1875 that 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 591 

cotton, manufacturing and all the industries were in excess 
of any previous year. This was encouraging and the city 
again lauched forth on its sea of growth and prosperity, but 
the Fates seemed to frown upon our city in those days. 1878 
brought the most direful calamity she had yet experienced, 
when the fearful yellow fever epidemic of that year laid her 
waste and the following year still another visit from the 
plague seemed to doom her as a city. We have dwelt upon 
this terrible period in former chapters, have shown the gloom 
and pall of the closing of this decade and the political and 
municipal adjustment which put Memphis above ruin once 
again. The city was cleaned up as she had never been before, 
an excellent sewer-system inaugurated and business not only 
revived but in a little while flourshed more than it ever had. 
Each year showed increased cotton receipts and, what seemed 
even better to many, all kinds of other business increased. A 
few manufacturers came and a growing industry, lumber, was 
becoming very important. 

The year closing August 31, 1887, showed the general 
merchandise trade of Memphis to be — including exports and 
imports — , $160,000,000. Wealth was now rapidly accumulat- 
ing and by 1890 it was said that for the past twenty years 
Memphis had, — despite the discouragements of the seventies, — 
surpassed any city of equal population in the United States in 
business and increase in wealth. 

The lumber trade had grown very much and saw-mills 
buzzed in great numbers in woods surrounding the city, while 
in 1880 not a dozen saw-mills had been within one hundred 
miles of her environs, and none at all that had cut lumber for 
shipping. Great quantities of lumber were now shipped and 
Memphis was acknowledged the largest hardwood lumber 
market in the world and the largest cotton-wood market, as 
well as the largest stave manufacturing city and one of the 
largest barrel manufacturing cities. In addition she was the 
largest inland cotton market in the world ; the largest pro- 
ducer of cotton-seed oil products, having seven mills in 1890; 
the sixth retail grocery market; the fifth wholesale grocery 



592 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

market in the United States and the sixth boot and shoe market 
in the United States. 

Of course Memphis stood first in the cotton trade above her 
other industries, but it was an excellent indication to see how 
she was branching out in all trades. Promoters of these other 
industries were not trying to lessen cotton importance, but to 
bring all branches of trade to this center and to make the cotton 
interests even greater by having the staple manufactured as 
well as grown here. That Memphis was a natural cotton center 
was early seen by reason of her locality in a cotton territory on 
the most important river of the country, giving her excellent 
facilities as a cotton-market, for transportation or storage, and 
this situation also makes her the trading point of planters for 
many miles in all directions. At this period it was reported that 
this city furnished to these neighbors $16,150,000 worth of pro- 
visions annually. 

The year 1891-2 showed 770,000 bales of cotton valued at 
$30,000,000 or more, as against 470,000 bales at $23,000,000 in 
1880. 

In 1893 one of the most severe money panics in the history 
of the country caused many failures of far-reaching disaster, 
but Memphis suffered less than most other cities, not having a 
single bank failure and no large failures among her merchants, 
though business fell off a great deal. The next year showed 
little improvement and "hard times" was a phrase with busi- 
ness men who had not used it before. Failures were so common 
over the country that they were not considered at all detri- 
mental, as they had formerly been held, and all firms that kept 
intact were to be congratulated. 

A report of the Merchants Exchange in 1894, stated that 
while the depression in cotton had caused the trade of Memphis 
to diminish, the leading wholesale dry goods houses had sold 
as much goods as usual, the grocery men had done a fairly good 
business, two large wholesale boot and shoe manufacturing houses 
had moved here, real estate had been fair and immigration from 
the north had added to the farming business of adjoining terri- 
tory. 

Memphis had never been a ' ' boom ' ' city and her sure growth 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 593 

had caused her to stand firmly through this great business depres- 
sion. This seeming calamity really brought a benefit to the cotton 
country by making some provisions so high that plantations and 
small farms raised necessary home provisions instead of putting 
all their land and labor in cotton. 

The grocery business continued to grow in importance, this 
business being a natural outgrowth of the cotton factor busi- 
ness which supplied planters with provisions for the plantations 
in addition to the cotton department and in many instances the 
profits from the grocery equaled those of the cotton. Memphis 
also became a market for sugar and molasses, having by 1895 
several sugar and molasses commission houses, and canning fac- 
tories began to make their appearance. 

All these new industries greatly benefitted IMemphis as the 
increase of cotton growing was already tending to overstock the 
world with its supply. The cotton crop for the year 1894-95 
aggregated 9,901,251 bales, which exceeded the requirements of 
the world 's manufacturers. The next year the cotton sales in this 
market alone amounted to nearly $20,000,000, which represented 
450,000 bales. Two thirds of this amount was for export and the 
remainder went to eastern and domestic spinners. Only 1800 
bales of all this amount was used by local mills. 

The Merchants Exchange report for 1896 stated that of 
thirty-two crops of cotton grown between 1864 and 1897, 
14,620,000 bales had been sold in the Memphis market, realizing 
$825,000,000, an annual average of 456,210 bales, valued at 
$25,750,000. The most valuable of these crops had been that of 
1870-71, when 511,432 bales had sold for $39,552,366, and the 
cheapest had been that of 1894-95, when 583,973 bales had sold 
for $16,125,225. 

The cotton-seed industry grew greatly as the receipts for 
112,932 tons for 1896 as against 76,694 the previous year will 
show. 

The lumber trade grew so rapidly that in 1896 a lumber 
report of the Merchants Exchange stated that the lumber indus- 
try gave employment to more laborers and required three times 
as many cars for transporting their goods as cotton did. 

The cotton crop for 1897 was stated to be the largest in 



594 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

history, after an unfortunate spring start that had seemed to 
forbode failure. 

1900 showed Memphis to have 826 industries and the past 
decade, despite the great business depression of much of the time, 
had brought an increase of sixty per cent in population. The 
city had become the greatest dry goods market in the South ; the 
second grocery market; the greatest wholesale shoe distributing 
point ; a live stock market of importance ; and the largest pro- 
ducer of cotton-seed manufactures in the world. It had eleven 
trunk lines of railroad and led Southern cities in its street rail- 
way system, electric light service, water plants and telephones. 

We have now lived over a decade in the new century and 
during that time commerce and manufactures have grown and 
improved as much in Memphis as in any city in the Union and 
more than in most cities. We have city-loving men and women 
such as few cities possess and these people have formed clubs 
for business, civic improvements and all the other requirements 
of a well-regulated city, the work of which is felt throughout the 
city. Some of our business men are about as near being human 
live-wires as can be found and they are untiring and unstinting 
in their efforts to make Memphis a first-class city in every respect. 
The different associations are treated briefly in the chapter on 
clubs and societies and our business clubs alone give an idea of 
the amount of work done for city betterment. 

Cotton and lumber are our chief staples of business and these 
are bringing the different manufactures of their raw and finished 
materials rapidly to Memphis. 

It has ever been the plea that the situation of Memphis makes 
her a good transportation city, a good central market for whole- 
sale and retail business and a good home place, and now it is 
urged that her situation is no less advantageous to manufactur- 
ing. This fact is becoming more generally understood and fac- 
tories are coming here steadily. In 1911 alone twenty new indus- 
tries were brought to Memphis. It is conceded that this is an 
excellent location for all kinds of cotton manufactures and now, 
being quite as much of a lumber market, it is a most excellent 
location for furniture and all kinds of wood-work manufactures. 
That this fact is more and more recognized is evidenced by the 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 595 

mills and factories we already have and others that are coming. 

A few statements taken from a manufacturing report will 
verify this: The Standard Oil Company is now operating the 
largest cooperage company in the world in Memphis; the third 
largest bridge company in the world chose Memphis, declining 
a $50,000 bonus to go elsewhere ; the largest sash and door com- 
pany in America is located here ; the National Biscuit Company 
has one of its largest plants here ; the American Steel and Wire 
Company has one of its most important plants here; there are 
in Memphis five box factories; two column factories; one coffin 
factory ; two car factories ; two wagon and carriage factories ; four 
dimension stock factories ; three furniture factories ; nine handle, 
spoke and hard-wood specialty factories ; one hard-wood flooring 
factory; one screen-door and wash-board factory; thirteen plan- 
ing mills ; three slack cooperage ; four tight cooperage ; five veneer 
plants; twenty yards handling retail yellow pine; thirty-one 
hard- wood lumber firms, without yards or mills; twenty-five 
wholesale lumber firms operating yards ; twenty-seven hard-wood 
saw-mill operators. In all 155 business houses engaged in the 
one industry of lumber and its products. 

Experts of the Illionois Central railroad state authoritatively 
that there is 600,000 feet of hard-wood lumber produced in Mem- 
phis every work day of the year. The annual production of Mem- 
phis hard-wood lumber was 125,000,000 feet. In 1909 receipts 
of logs at Memphis were 137,391,274 feet. Of this 91,850,318 
feet was received by rail and 45,540,956 feet by water. 

Quoting from the above report: "There is nothing into 
which enters either iron or wood that cannot be economically and 
successfully, peacefully and profitably produced in Memphis. 
Memphis has all the advantages of raw material, markets, trans- 
portation, traffic and distribution facilities, low cost of produc- 
tion, cheap and efficient labor, good health and good living con- 
ditions, good homes and low in cost, splendid street car facilities, 
good schools and ' colleges, churches and Sunday Schools of all 
denominations, and a contented and happy people. ' ' 

According to the Thirteenth United States Census of Man- 
ufactures of Memphis, prepared under the direction of William 
M. Steuart, chief statistician for manufactures, the Bureau of 



596 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Census, Washington, D. C, "Memphis has increased in the per 
cent of manufactures for 1909, over 1904, 103 per cent in the 
capital stock invested; 76 per cent in the number of salaried 
officials and clerks ; 71 per cent in the miscellaneous expenses ; 57 
per cent in the cost of materials used ; 51 per cent in the value of 
products; 42 per cent in the value added by manufacture; 33 
per cent in the salaries and wages ; 14 per cent in the number of 
establishments; and 7 per cent in the average number of wage 
earners employed during the year. There were 329 establish- 
ments in 1909, an increase of 40, or 14 per cent. The value of 
products in 1909 was "$30,242,000, and $20,043,000 in 1904, an 
increase of $10,199,000 or 51 per cent. The average per estab- 
lishment was approximately $92,000 in 1900 and about $69,000 
in 1904." 

The annual cotton statement of the ]\Iemphis Cotton 
Exchange gives the gross cotton receipts for the year 1910-11, 
920,887 bales, and the net receipts 547,496, with a total value of 
the year's net receipts of $44,122,702.64. 

Memphis is also becoming an important stock-raising point 
and some of our best business men predict that the future Mem- 
phis will be one of the greatest stock-raising centers in the 
country. 

Front Street is almost entirely devoted to grocery, cotton 
and commission merchants, w^hile Madison Avenue is called the 
Wall Street of Memphis, and Main Street is the greatest retail 
business street, on which is transacted many thousands of dollars 
worth of business every day. 

The corner of Main Street and Madison Avenue is the great 
center of the business district and its usually congested condition 
and the despair it brings the street car company to handle its 
crowds, shows Memphis to be a true metropolis. 



INDEX 

Abolition in Memphis 76 

Aborigines 10 

Adams, Gen. John 306 

Akansea, towns 34, 37 

Alibamo, battle of 20, 38 

Allegheny, warship 82 

Anderson, Butler P 175 

Anderson, Kellar 371 

Annesdale Park 329, 334 

Architecture and Public Buildings, 307; early architecture, 307; iron 
front buildings, 308; steel structures, 308; churches, 308; sta- 
ture of Forrest, 309; bust of Jackson, 309; bust of Harvey 
Mathes, 309; new Shelby County Court House, 310; Cossitt 
Library, 316; Goodwyn Institute, 317; Union Station, 320; Cen- 
tral Police Station, 314; United States Custom House, 322. 
Artesian Water Company, 209, 210, 211, 239, 251, 258, 267. Contract 
with City, 210; Commissioners, 267. 

Artesian Water Department 272, 293 

Art, Music and Drama, 469; early theatricals, 470-471; Jenny Lind, 
471; first eftorts in Art, 472; Laura Kean, Edwin Booth and 
Joseph Jefferson, 473; Old Washington Street Theatre, 471; 
Greenlaw Opera House, 473; Mardi Gras Festivities, 474; New- 
Memphis Theatre, 471; Miss Mary Solari, 476-478; Carl Gutherz, 
478-481; Katharine Augusta Carl, 483; Mendelssohn Society, 484; 
Appollo Club, 484; Beethoven Club, 484, 493; Musical Festival, 
484; Grace Lewellyn, 489; Memphis Conservatory, 490; Nine- 
teenth Century Club, 490; young Memphis actresses, 486-491; 
Bijou Theatre, 491; Goodwyn Institute, 492; East End Park, 
494; Jefferson Theatre, 495; Lyric Theatre, 496; Society of Arts 
and Crafts, 491; Marie Greenwood Worden, 497; Southern Con- 
servatory of Music, 497. 

Astor Park 334 

Atlantic and Pacific Railway Convention 380 

Bailey, Sylvester, Mayor 84 

Bank Clearings, 1897 246, 257 

Banks and Insurance, 579; Early Banking Systems, 579-582; Banking 

organizations, 583-584; Insurance companies, 584, 585. 

Baugh, R. D., Mayor 300 

Beasley, J. E 193-413 

Bellechasse, Captain 46 

Belvidere Park 329, 334 

Bench and Bar, the, 520; First Court in Memphis, 520; Circuit Courts 

and Judges, 521-525; Chancery Courts and Judges, 522, 525, 526, 

527, 528; Commercial and Criminal Court, 524; Criminal Courts, 

528, 529; Probate Court, 530; Municipal Courts, 530; Noted 
members of the Bar in the past, 530-538. 

Bethell, W. D 216, 218, 304 



598 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Bickford Park 329, 334 

Bickford, W. A 326, 329 

Biedma, 13 ; narrative of 27 

Bienville, LeMoyne 36, 37, 41 

Blair, Gen. P. P 150 

Bluff City Grays 338, 368 

Board of Health 210, 216, 217, 287 

Bond Issues 243, 288 

Boyle, Virginia Frazer 466 

Bridge, Mississippi River, 207, 225; Opening of 226-228 

Brinkley, R. C 93, 145 

Brooks Memorial Art Gallery 334 

Brooks, Mrs. S. H 334 

Brown, James, 61; reminiscenes of Memphis 62-65 

Brown, John, raid 106-108 

Bryan, C. M 287 

Buckland, Gen. R. P 356 

Bureau of Municipal Research 576 

Canada, Col. J. W 372 

Carmack, E. W 234, 306, 456 

Carnes, Gen. S. T 368-371 

Carnes, W. W 226 

Carondelet, Baron 43 

Carpet-baggers 148 

Carr Grant 57 

Carroll, Chas. M 306 

Carroll, Gen. W. H 306 

Celeron, Mons de 40 

Chicasa, town of, 19 ; battle of 20 

Chickasaw Bluffs, 9, 12, 20, 21, 24, 31, 33, 36, 40, 46; under Spain, 42; 
under Great Britain, 42; part of Carolina, 42; Part of United 
States, 43. 

Chickasaw Guards 368 

Chickasaw Park 328, 334 

Chickasaw Purchase 57 

Chickasaws, treaty with 62 

Chisca, 21, 22, 24; Mound (Jackson) 29, 38, 354 

Churches and Ministers, 499; Baptist: First Church, 510; Central 
Church, 511; Chelsea Church, 511; Rowan Memorial Church, 
512; Johnson Ave. Church, 512; Trinity Church, 512; Seventh 
Street Church, 512; Lennox Church, 512; LaBelle Place Church 
512; McLemore Ave. Church, 512; Bellevue Boulevard Church 
512; Christian: Linden Street Church, 516; Mississippi Ave 
Church, 516; Third Church, 517; Decatur Street Church, 517 
Harbert Ave. Church, 517. Catholic: St. Peters Church, 514; St 
Mary's German Church, 514; St. Patrick's Church, 515; St 
Bridgid's Church, 515; Sacred Heart Church, 516; St. Thomas 
Church, 516. Congregational: Stranger's Church, 518. Cum 
berland Presbyterian: First Church, 512; Chelsea Church, 513 
Third Church, 513; Institute Church, 513; Central Church, 513 
Tabernacle Church, 513; Walker Height's Church, 514. Jewish 
Jewish Temple, 518; Baron Hirsch Temple, 518. Lutheran 
German Evangelical Trinity, 517; Church of the Redeemer, 517 
Methodist-Episcopal: Wesley Chapel, 500; Asbury Church, 500 
Central Methodist Church, 501; Harris Memorial Church, 501 
Madison Heights Church, 502; Saffarans Street Church, 502 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 599 

Springdale Church, 502; Olive Street Church, 502; Annesdale 
Church, 502; New South Memphis Church, 502; Davidson Chapel, 
503; Pennsylvania Avenue Church, 503; Mississippi Avenue 
Church, 503; Lenox Church, 503; Washington Heights Church, 
503; Galloway Memorial Church, 503; Kentucky Street Church, 
504; Parkway Church, 504; Pepper Memorial Church, 504. 
Protestant Episcopal: Calvary Church, 508; St. Mary's Cathe- 
dral, 508; Grace Church, 509; Church of Good Shepherd, 509; St. 
Luke's Church, 509; Church of Holy Trinity, 510; St. Alban's 
Chapel, 510. Presbyterian: First Church, 504; Second Church, 
505; Alabama St. Church, 505; Third Church, 505; Lauderdale 
or Westminster Church, 506; Idlewild Church, 507; McLemore 
Ave. Church, 507. Scientist: First Church, 518. Miscellaneous 
Associate Reform Presbyterian, 519; Hebrew-Christian, 519 
Pentecostal Holiness Church, 519; Faith Mission Church, 519 
Church of God, 519; Seventh Day Adventist, 519. 

Citizens Street Railway 384 

City Club 573 

City debt 161, 288 

City Hospital 240, 268 

Civil War, beginning of, 118; subscriptions for, 122, 125; Memphis 
in, 337. 

Clapp, J W 167 

Clapp, W. L., 217, 230, 231, 232, 305; elected mayor 239 

Colbert, Chief 47, 48 

Commerce and Manufactures, 586; barter with Indians, 586; primitive 
commerce, 586; Commercial Convention, 588; Chamber of Com- 
merce, 589; the cotton trade, 589, 590; lumber business, 591; 
financial panics, 587, 590, 592; growth of cotton trade, 592; man- 
ufacturing industry, 594, 595, 596. 
Commission Government, 277, 280, 281; Commission Government 

Act 277 

Concord, gun boat 228 

Conduit System 281 

Confederate Park 328, 334 

Confederate Reunion 255 

Confederate troops, Memphis, 337, 338; regiments and officers .. 338 

Conflagrations, great 223-225 

Connoly, M. W 455 

Conway, Miss Clara 431 

Cossitt Frederick H 316 

Cossitt Library 270, 316 

County seat moved to Raleigh 78 

Court House, first, 68; Overton Hotel, 162; present 309 

Courts, Circuit and Chancery, established 94 

Court Square 327 

Crawford, W. J 457 

Crump, E. H., Mayor 279, 289, 290, 306 

Crump- Williams contest 279 

D'Artaguette 36, 38 

Davila, Pedrarias 13 

Davis, Capt. C. H 349, 350 

Davis, Jefferson 113, 160, 381 

Davis, W. C 270, 271, 289 

DeSoto, 9; birth of, 13; in West Indies, 13; in Peru, 14; marriage of, 

14; Governor and Captain-General of Cuba and Florida, 14; 



600 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Adelantado or Priest of Florida, 14; at Tampa Bay, 14; marched 
througli Florida, 15; marched through Georgia, 16; turns west- 
ward, 16; battle of Mauvila, 17; enters Mississippi, 17; winters 
at Chicasa, 18, battle of Chicasa, 20; battle of Alibamo, 20; 
crosses the Tallahatchie, 21; the march to the Chickasaw Bluffs, 
22; narrative of Garcilaso de la Vega, 21; narrative of the Por- 
tuguese gentleman, 25; the narrative of Biedma, 27; narrative of 
Ranjel, 28; at the Chickasaw Bluffs, 25; crosses the Mississippi 
River, 27. 

DeSoto Park 330 

Dies, Thomas 305, 306 

Dil, B. F 448 

Doak, H. M 454 

Education, 397; Primitive Schools, 397; Private Schools, 398, 425-438; 

Public Schools, 398-424; State Normal School, 438; Industrial 

and Training School, 441. 

Electric Lisrhting 239 

Ellet, Col. Chas. Jr 342 

Ellett, H. T 167 

Engineering Department 202, 213, 214, 219, 239, 251, 268, 287 

Exchange Building 89, 326 

Express Companies 101 

Fentress, Francis 528 

Ferguson, Kenneth 49 

Finlay, Luke W 306, 338, 534 

Fire Department 109, 203, 223, 253, 286 

Fisher, F. N 392 

Fitch, Col. G. N 350 

Fitzhugh, G. T 234 

Flatboatmen War 81 

Flippin Compromise Bonds 166, 265 

Flippin, Jno. R 155, 165, 303 

Floyd, A. C 457 

Forrest, Gen. N. B., 160, 306, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 360, 361, 362, 363- 

367; rescue of Able, 98; attack on Memphis, 355; forces and 

losses, 367; statue of, 309. 

Forrest Park 329, 334 

Fort Adams 44, 48 

Fort Assumption 37, 38 

Fort Esperanza 46, 50 

Fort Ferdinand 44, 46 

Fort Pickering 50, 353 

Fort Pike 50 

Fort Prudhomme 40 

Freedman's Bureau 139, 148 

Front Foot Assessment 269, 287 

Gailor, Thos. F 256 

Gallaway, M. C 447 

Galloway, J. S., Judge 530 

Galloway, Robt 192, 229, 328, 334 

Galvez, Admiral 43 

Gambling in Memphis 75, 231 

Gantt, Geo 186, 195, 534 

Gaston Park 329 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 601 

Gayoso Don Manuel 44, 46 

Gayoso House, founded ^5 

Genet, French Minister „44 

Godwin, J. R 205, 328. 334 

Goltman, Max 287 

Goodbar, J. M 234 

Goodman, Leo 287 

Goodwin, Robt. B 21 

Goodwyn Institute ^^' 

Goodwyn, Wm. A ^l*^ 

Gordon, Gen. G. W 226, 306, 413 

Grant, U. S 128 

Greenlaw, W. B 145 

Greer, Col. H. D 363 

Guion, Capt. Isaac, 44, 50; seizes Chickasaw Bluffs 47 

Guion, H. L 446 

Gunboats for Memphis, 121; Confederate, 343; Federal, 343; battle 
before Memphis, 342. 

Hadden, D. P 193, 204, 205, 206, 211, 213, 218, 304 

Harris, Isham G 118, 160, 306 

Health Department 287 

Health Measures Committee 195 

Heiskell, C. W 186, 188, 203, 205, 206, 234, 526 

Heiskell," F. H ••• 527 

Hprmpny, Cbas 199, 207 

Hickman grant 57 

Higbee, Miss Jennie M 429 

High School Alumni Association 421 

Highways, Shelby County 377-379 

Hill, A. B -/a HI 

Hopefield 48, 79 

Howard, Col 48, 49 

Howard Association, 157, 173; roll of dead 183 

Humphries, J. H 197 

Hunter, F. B 413 

Hurlbut Gen. S. A 134. 356, 360, 361-36o 

Hutchison, R. B 462 

Indians, Chickasaw, 18, 33, 39, 41; Choctaw, 17; removal to West. . 77 

Indian Tribes H 

International Improvement Convention 83 

Interstate Drill 242 

Irving Block Prison 133 

JackFon, Andrew, 51, 58, 60; bust of 104, 109, 309 

Jackson, State of • • Jl^ 

JarkPon, Thos. H 267, 271, 272 

Johnson, Andrew 149 

Johnson, John, Mayor 153. 301. 302 

Jones, Sam 235 

Jordan, R. D 411 

Juvenile Court 282 

Keating, J. M., 78, 148, 153, 155, 158. 161, 165, 166, 169. 177. 178, 182. 
183, 184, 193. 450, 456. 459. 

Kellar, A. J 451 

Kennedy Sara Beaumont 467 



602 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Kennedy, Walker 455, 467 

Kernan, Will H 465 

Kessler, Geo. E 334 

Ku-Klux Klan, the, 150; constitution and creed of 151 

Langstaff, A. D 173, 183, 193 

La Salle, voyage of, 32; takes possession of Mississippi Valley 34 

Latham, F. S 445 

Laughlin, H. W 262 

Lawrence, Robert, Mayor 75 

Lee, James, Jr 204, 205 

Lee Line Steamers 383, 389, 393 

Leftwich, Jno. W., Mayor 152 

LeMaster, E. B 258, 305 

Levee, North Memphis 270 

Linkhauer, J. A 175 

Literature, Memphis books and authors 462-468 

Loague, John, Mayor 161, 165, 302 

Lofland, W. O., Comptroller, 135; mayor, 149 

Long grant 57 

Love, G. C 305, 306 

Mageveney, Michael 306 

Malone, G. B 416, 424 

Malone, J. H., Mayor 263, 270, 274, 279, 305 

Malone, Judge Walter 262, 467 

Map of Memphis 60 

Margot River (Wolf) 38, 47 

Market Square 327 

Marauette and Joliet 32 

Martial Law in Memphis 135 

Mathes, J. Harvey, 454 ; bust of 309 

Matthews. G. C 453 

Maurelian, Brother 427 

Maury, R. B 407, 574 

Mauvila, battle of 17 

Mayors, Aldermen and Commissioners; table of, 1827-1912 296-306 

Mayors Office restored 238 

Membre, Piere Zenobe 32 

Memphis, founded, 60; first map of, 60; name of, 65; first census, 63; 
incorporated, 70; first charter, 71; first officers, 72; first elec- 
tions, 72; first ordinance, 73; new city limits, 73; population, 
74; amendment of charter, 74; Isaac Rawlings, Mayor, 74; Wards 
established, 74; population, 1835, 78; slighted by State, 79; 
claimed by Mississippi, 80; census of 1840, 80; taxation in 1840, 
90- «r.iri<:ern8ele. Wm., Mavor, 81; war with flatboatmen, 81; 
boundaries enlarged, 83; Sylvester Bailey, Mayor, 84; population 
1846, 85; first bond issue, 89; leases Exchange Building, 89; new 
charter, 90; annexed South Memphis, 90; census of 1850, 92; 
plank roads, 92; amendment of charter, 94; census of 1860, 108; 
secession of from Tennessee, 119; John Park, Mayor, 125; cap- 
tured by Federal fieet, 126; exciting scenes, 127; under military 
rule, 128; hardships of people, 132; under martial law, 135; civil 
law restored. 137; distress of people, 138: great negro riot, 140; 
Northern estimate of, 146; boundaries enlarged, 149; boundaries 
reduced, 152; property values, 153; census 1870, 153; debt and 
bond issues, 155. 156, 205, 219; taxation troubles, 156, 159; 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 603 

scheme to retire debt, 161; census 1875, 162; revised charter, 
164; enormous debt, 164; bankrupt, 185; wasteful bond system, 
190; census of 1880, 213; census of 1890, 213; mortality rate 
1893, 217; rapid growth of, 222; wants name restored, 229; Back 
Tax Collector, 240; bonds refunded, 243; limits extended, 245, 
249; power of taxation, 249; census of 1900, 254, rate of taxation, 
1907, 264; real estate, 268; front foot assessment, 269; parks, 
270; limits extended 273; Commission Government, 277, 280, 281; 
early militia companies, 237; late militia companies, 368-373; 
Memphis in Civil War, 337; Confederate troops from, 338; gun- 
boat battle, 342; capture of, 350; under Federal rule, 351; Union 
Station Co., 320, 391, 392; street railways, 395; yellow fever epi- 
demics 1867, 152; 1873, 157; 1878, 170-184; mortality of, 172; 
relief committees, 183; bands of workers, 175; incidents of, 180- 
182; 1879, 192-194; 1897, 243. 

Memphis and Charleston Jubilee 95 

Memphis Medical History, 539; early practitioners, 539, 544; yellow 

fever epidemics, 545, 546; medical institutions and hospitals, 

546, 552; Memphis Medical Society, 543; noted physicians of 

the past, 544; first college of medicine, 542. 

Memphis water supply, 207, 208, 209, 210, 267; contamination of... 293 

Meriwether, Minor 169 

Meriwether, Mrs. Lyde 237, 464 

Meriwether, Niles 197, 201, 203, 211, 213, 214, 216 

Merrill, A. P 400, 403 

Mexico, war with, 85, 87; volunteers in 336 

Military History 336 

Militia, early companies, 337; late companies 368, 373 

Minor, Judge H. D 528 

Mission Home 221 

Mississippi River, discovery of, 24, 34; DeSoto crosses, 28; great 

overflow 243, 289 

Mitchell, R. W 170, 175, 182, 193 

Mitchigameas, town 33 

Mizell, Wm 49 

Montgomery, Commodore J. E 343 

Mooney, C. P. J 457 

Moore, Wm. R 306 

Morison, Sanford 272 

Municipal ownership 258, 280 

Myers, Minnie Walter 465 

McCianahan, Mr 448 

McFarland. L. B 328, 334 

McKellar, K. D 306 

McKinley, President Wm 254 

McLemore, Jno. C 325 

McMahon, J. H 445 

McNeill, I. C 417 

Navy Yard 82, 166, 326 

Neely, E. A 417 

Negro riot 140 

Nichols, F. S 454 

Ogilvie, C. C 477 

O'Haver, Geo. T 265, 270 

Overton, John, Jr 192, 304 



604 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Overton, Judge John 59, 69, 325 

Overton Park 329, 331 

Panics, money, 1837, 78; 1857, 96; 1873, 590; 1893 592 

Park, John, Mayor, 125, 144, 148, 349, 350 

Parks and promenades, 232; dedication of, 324; Park driveway, 330; 
Commissioners, 334; Overton, 331; Riverside, 331; Forrest.. 329 

Patterson, Josiah 306 

Patterson, M. R 306 

Peoples Protective Union 164, 169 

Peres, Israel H 413 

Petit, Col. Hugh 371 

Petit, J. W. A 398-401 

Phelan, James 226 

Phoebus, Thomas 444 

Piamingo, Chief 47, 48 

Pickett, A. B 454, 455, 456, 491 

Pickett, Ed. Jr 306 

Pike, Capt. Z. M 50 

Pike, Gen. Albert 450 

Pinch 84 - 

Pittman, Judge A. B 262 

Plpnk roads 92 

Police Department 141, 143, 154, 203, 220, 251, 265, 286 

Population 68, 74, 78, 80, 85, 92, 108, 153, 162. 213, 254 

Porter, D. T 183, 189, 191, 192, 195, 200, 204, 304 

Portraits of Mavors 276 

Portuguese gentleman, 13 ; narrative of 25 

Press, The, 444; Memphis Advocate, 444; Western Times, 444; Mem- 
phis Gazette, 445; Memnhis Enouirer, 445; Memphis Appeal, 446- 
450. 451-454; Memnhis Eagle, 446; Eagle Ennuirer, 447; Memphis 
Avalanche, 447, 450-454; Western World, 448; Commercial, 450, 
456; Post. 450; Bulletin, 450; Evening Ledger, 450; Evening 
Argus, 450; Public Ledger, 454; Memnhis Scimitar, 455; Sunday 
Times, 456; Evening Democrat, 456; Apneal-Avalanche, 456; 
Commercial-Apneal, 457; Morning News. 457; News Scimitar, 
457; Southern Post .Tournal, 458; Memphis Press, 458; Miscel- 
laneous newspapers, 458-461. 

Preston, T. W 306 

Prohibition law 282 

Prudhomme Piere 33 

Pryor, John P 446 

Railroad Jubilee 95 

Railroad lines 378-384 

Railroads, rapid extension 95 

Raine, J. D 457 

Rambaut, G. V 410 

Ramsey grant 55 

Ramsey, John 55 

Randolnh, town of 78 

Randolph, W. M 162 

Raniel, narrative of 13, 28 

Rawlings, Isaac 71, 74 

Rice grant 52, 58 

Rice, John 52, 58 

Ricketts, H. P 455 



History of Memphis, Tennessee. 605 

Rioting in Memphis 97 

Riverside Park 330, 313, 332 

Rocky Ford 21, 22 

Secession upheaval, 111; meetings, 108-115; directory, 116; of Memphis, 
117; State vote, 120; Memphis vote, 120. 

Sewer System 196, 287 

Shelby County, founding of, 66; early history of, 66, 69; first court 
house, 68; second court house, 162; present court house, 309; 
Court House Commission, 313; Highways, 377, 379. 

Shelby, Gov. Isaac 51, 58 

Sherman, W. T 128-131 

Slavery 93 

Smith, Gen. Preston 306 

Smith, W. J 306 

Sneed, Gen. J. L. T 306 

Societies and Clubs, 553; Secret and benevolent orders, 553-559; Social 
organizations, 560-464; patriotic and memorial societies, 464- 
568; musical organizations, 568-569; civic clubs and exchanges, 
571-573; city club, 573; Bureau of Municipal Research, 576. 

Speed, R. A 396 

Spickernagle, Wm., Mayor 81 

Stanton, F. P 306 

Starr, Col. M. H 363 

State lines 378 

Steamboat Lines 375-377, 383, 389-390, 393, 394 

Steen, J. M 414 

Stewart, Gen. A. P 306 

Street Railways 384-389, 394-396 

Subways 275 

Tallahatchie River 20 

Taxation, unequal 230 

Taxing District, preliminary plans, 167; Taxing District Act, 186; cred- 
itors protest, 189; first commissioners, 191; engineering work, 
202, 219; refunding Act, 205; progress of sewer work, 205. 

Tax Rate, 1909 74 

Taylor, Col. W. F 234, 306 

Taylor, Gen. A. R 226, 369, 371 

Taylor, Zack 306 

Telegraph, first line, 85 ; line to Nashville 89 

Tennessee admitted 43 

Thornton, G. D 182, 203, 206, 211, 217 

Thornton, Judge Lee 528 

Tombigbee, battle of 17 

Tonti, Henri de 32, 36 

Toof, S. C 449 

Transportation. ?74; steamboat H"ps. 375-394: railroad lines, 378-384; 
street lailways, 384-389; 394-396; stage lines, 37J. 

Trask, W. L 455 

Turley, T. B 205, 247, 306 

Turner, Dr. B. F 335 

Tutwiler, T. H 395 

Union Station 320, 391, 392 

U. S. Custom House 322, 326 

Utley, R. A 289, 290, 306 



606 History of Memphis, Tennessee. 

Van Pelt, Henry 446, 448 

Vaudreuil, De 41 

Vega, Garcilaso de la, 13 ; narrative of 22 

Walker, J. Knox 306 

Walker, Judge S. P 165, 186, 205 

Walsh, J. T 305 

Waring, Col. Roane 372 

Waring, Geo. E. Jr., 196, 197, 198, 200, 201; sewer system 196-201 

Washburn, Gen. C. C 134, 356, 359, 360, 361, 364-367 

Watson, Annah Robinson 467 

Weatherford, J. H 268 

Wheatley, Seth, Mayor 75 

Wilkinson, General 44 

Williams, Col. Kit 306 

Williams, J. J., Mayor 247, 250, 254, 257, 263, 279, 305 

Williams, N. M 415 

Willingham, J. T 335 

Winchester, Gen. James 60. 63 

Winchester, M. B., Mayor 71, 325 

Wolfe, L. E 425 

Wolf River Canal 86 

Wolf's Friend, Chief 47, 48 

Women, publish newspaper 237 

Workhouse 154 

Wright, E. E 538 

Wright, Gen. M. J 306 

Wright, Luke E., 181, 182, 183, 193, 196, 306, 395 

Yellow Fever, 1867, 152; 1873, 157; 1878, 170-184; mortality, 1878, 172; 

relief committee, 183; bands of workers, 175; incidents of, 180- 

182; 1879, 192-194; 1897, 243. 

Young, Casey 306 

Young, J. P 280, 525 

Young, R. B 458 

Zimmermann, F 458 



)EC 16 1912 



1 D D n 'on 



